September 2014 Open Thread

Past time for more thread.

More like this

The liquefied natural gas tax that, according to https://eng.rim-intelligence.co.jp/news/select/category/refinary/articl… , was scheduled to increase about two years ago is giving the Japanese government a monthly windfall, because of the increased imports to make up for the missing nuclear electricity production, of about $140 million. More, if the increase went through.

And it may not be the only fossil fuel tax now providing that government a substantial Fukushima bonus (please give evidence of others if you have it).

By G.R.L. Cowan (not verified) on 18 Sep 2014 #permalink

Carrying on from some comments in the previous thread here, about BoM and Rutherglen (thanks, people), Jennifer Marohasey has responded. She let me know in a comment as soon as she could, posting a link to her blog which I kindly replaced with a link to the archived version.

I was generous enough to link to an archived copy one of her previous articles, too:)

As expected, it's taken me a few comments to pick up on the points she made and then I didn't cover all of them. Since she wants BoM scientists in jail (see the comment from rubiginosa on "malice"), you can guess how ridiculous her claims are.

Oops, didn't see the Sep thread.

I posted some comments on Marohasy’s latest call for sackings due to allegedly “making up global warming” on that article at HotWhopper.

TL;DR

That particular post appears to be the same kind of train wreck as earlier posts – impressive, given all of the corrections she had to ignore to make it thus.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 19 Sep 2014 #permalink

BBD, in reply to your comment on the Aug thread, what really impresses me is how people who've been repeatedly shown to be incompetent and/or full of bullshit still get cited by the same touters who confidently touted them earlier.

It suggests a deep lack of intellectual self-respect, although a number of other reasons have explanatory power too.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 19 Sep 2014 #permalink

No, Stu 2. The links were intended. I linked to my comments in which I linked to an archive copy of Jennifer's articles. That was deliberate because Jennifer accused me of not linking to her articles when in fact I did.

I've been asked by readers to not link directly to disinformation websites. I agree. They should be off search engines altogether or at the very least made difficult to find.

Are you a fan of disinformation Stu 2?

Sou is perfectly capable of furnishing the links she intends to and not the ones Stu2 thinks she should have. Follow Sou's link to the comment and one will see that it contains a link to an archived copy of one of Marohasy's articles (as advertised).

Sou doesn't hotlink to denier sites for two reasons - to avoid artifically bumping up rankings and to forestall the numerous instances at WUWT of editing content down the memory hole when it is exposed as incorrect (Marohasy is not Watts, but if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas).

For those not following the discussion the "generous enough" is a jibe at Marohasy's comment at Sou's place:

"But let me be generous and consider that one [a station move] might have occurred…".

I'm sure Stu2 didn't mean to suggest that it was just Sou being condescending, as might have been inferred by the casual reader.

Stu2 still hasn't indicated whether, in his opinion, BOM have adequately address Marohasy's fluttering about Rutherglen.

Now Marohasy's nailing her colours to RAAF Williamtown? Reaching much? Both Williamtown and her previous choice of Amberley show very obvious step changes, pointing to a station move away. Since the step is in minimum temperatures, it is away from a large source of night-time heat. Something that might heat up during the day and radiate that heat at night...hmmm?

Does she realise that RAAF bases tend to have things like runways, aprons, bunkers, hangers etc, which get changed from time to time as the RAAF requires? Why would any of that necessitate a station resiting?

For people who don't want to visit Jennifer's site directly:

https://archive.today/8c2YZ

https://archive.today/8O6ZW

If the poor calibre of her articles isn't enough, just look at the calibre of the comments. Says it all, doesn't it.

You'll also note the lack of "data and code". Wondering Willis Eschenbach would be shocked!

And how Jennifer thumbs her nose at Anthony Watts' surface station efforts of the past six years or so. As if a shift in weather stations hundreds of metres from one side of a hill to the other could possibly make a difference - according to Jennifer.

Sorry Sou - we crossed.

But to save Stu2 the trouble of addressing your last question, the snawer is "yes".

Stu 2, you apparently failed to read the comment Sou linked to which - just as Sou said here - was the one where Sou linked to one of Marohasy's earlier articles. Hence, the link provided was correct.

Oh, and you're still transparently shilling for Marohasy, despite all of her obvious blunders! I wonder how many readers have had the question idly cross their mind: are you actually Marohasy? ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

My comment also crossed. Such is life...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

I can't answer your belief question Sou as I don't know what you would define as a 'disinformation site'. I'm guessing that you believe that the Marohasy site is an example?
Frank D.
I have stated all along that BoM should not have found it so difficult to answer these questions. So far they have only offered some circumstantial evidence for one possible site move at Rutherglen. The rest of the questions being asked by Marohasy, Abbot, Johnston & others have not been answered.
As far as the rest of your questions and Sou's questions go; I would suggest you would probably need to ask Dr Marohasy. I don't know her personally and I have no idea what she personally thinks or personally knows about them. From what I have seen at her site I would guess she would answer if you asked.

So far they have only offered some circumstantial evidence for one possible site move at Rutherglen.

Nope.

You, just like Marohasy, appear to be falling into the fallacy of claiming that the evidence of an artificial break in the data that requires adjustment, evidence that arises from the data analysis, does not exist.

Marohasy is still pushing that botched "logic" despite having her error pointed out to her.

I have stated all along that BoM should not have found it so difficult to answer these questions.

They didn't find it difficult to answer the informed questions which were answered in the literature some time back.

It's the uninformed questions from people alleging nefarious intent by virtue of their own comically inept "analysis" that can appear "hard to answer" - you can't use evidence and logic to argue someone out of position they did not arrive at using evidence and logic, so it is "hard" to get them to admit that their claims were bullshit. That goes double for conspiracy theories that build on an absence of evidence - most conspiracy theorists won't accept that there is no reason to believe their unevidenced theory precisely because they came to the theory despite a lack of evidence for it.

And when that happens their even less competent followers tend to use their lack of admission to claim that their "questions were not answered", which is comical at first and then morphs into tragic.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

The rest of the questions being asked by Marohasy, Abbot, Johnston & others have not been answered.

Since you are so frequently caught out making false claims here, perhaps you could list the rest of the questions that you allege "have not been answered"?

And if you want to build the first smidgin of credibility given that you're starting right on zero, it might be smart to first prune the list for any questions that have actually been answered (e.g. in the published literature, or on the BoM website or in their press releases), or that are based on incorrect assertions or inferences (as demonstrated by published papers, or on this forum, or at The Conversation, or by Graham Redfearn, or at HotWhopper, etc. over the last few weeks).

Shouldn't be too hard, right? I mean, you confidently and repeatedly assert that there are still unanswered questions, so you must be able to list a bunch of them, right?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

I have stated all along that BoM should not have found it so difficult to answer these questions.

I wonder on what imagined basis Stu2 thinks that they found these "so difficult" to answer?

I wonder on what imagined basis Stu2 thinks that they found these “so difficult” to answer?

Much the same basis on which certain parties concluded that the BoM was "fiddling the books" - ideation based on zero evidence but a whole lot of suspicion?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

Lionel, certain online forums seem to have more commenters these days who fit the profile of professional water muddiers. Many of them are no doubt amateur practitioners, but given what we know about various government and private attempts to exert opinion influence via social media a number of them are not.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2

Please make your next comment a detailed response to Lotharsson's #14. List the questions you claim are 'unanswered'.

Posting anything else will be incontrovertible evidence of bad faith and dishonesty on your part.

Lotharsson,

The paid soldiers aside, should not the likes of Pat Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Willy Soon, the Idsos, Spencer, Christy etc. be proud of their work, oh and Curry too.

BTW as I descended further down the comments and opened up 'View more' links my screen dims and a box pops up:

A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, open the script in the debugger, or let the script continue.

Script: https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yh/r/WyXmh8aGMQd.js:44

This on Firefox 32.0 on Ubuntu Linux.

Lionel

Known issue with the Facebook fbstatic script. More here.

Hands up if you remember that one "Debbie" from blogs such as Marohasy's and Jo Nova's, who along with Chameleon (who posted here for a while) is one of only two (IIRC) people to use some very particular phrases anywhere according to Google?

It is curious that Debbie appears in comments at Marohasy's blog on the latest "Sackable fraud at Rutherglen!" post - and uses a number of the distinctive phrases and terms Stu 2 has used here (and that do not appear on the HotWhopper post in question).

Stu 2 and Chameleon have previously shared some features of their respective interaction and argument styles along with promulgating some of the very same tropes. Some readers here have wondered whether they are the same person. I reckon it's more likely that the dedicated denialist world Down Under is rather small and there's a lot of mindless repetition.

Glenn Tamblyn has a go at starting to explain the problems with Marohasy's position. The responses illustrate why few people who disagree with her bother with Marohasy's blog these days. Based on a mention of a now-removed comment, I suspect Debbie initially thought Glenn was me, but she may have been referring to someone else.

While we're at it, Marohasy makes this absolute pearler of a stupid comment in response to a comment about predicting rainfall three months ahead:

...getting rainfall cycles right is more important than understanding a few degrees change in temperature...

Not if we're talking about climate - the whole point of Acorn-SAT - it's not. A "few degrees change" is the difference between prosperity and hell. Also, not if we're talking about (say) the growing weather in a warm climate where a few degrees difference at the wrong time will kill many crops.

More than one commentator over there appears to think that somehow the BoM's Acorn-SAT work and calculation of things like national trends means that they can't possibly have other data products that are useful for other purposes, such as the purposes they themselves have in mind, and therefore that the BoM is somehow letting citizens down. (Debbie argues this, echoing Stu 2 on the August thread.)

Marohasy eventually cites a couple of papers - but not the one that the BoM used to describe their methodology that she said she was finally getting around to reading a while back. Curious, eh?

It's not as bad as that thread Lionel A linked to (perhaps partly due to the small number of commenters, and Tea Party ideology bringing out some of the deepest levels of stupid) but some of them are trying real hard to compete with the Americans.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2014 #permalink

Some readers here have wondered whether they are the same person.

Stu2/Debbie/Chameleon eh? Don't know "Debbie" but Stu2/Chameleon rings absolutely true to me.

What is it with denialists and their bloody socks? Yet more dishonesty.

Lotharsson@#22.
I can only suggest that you ask your questions & put your argument directly at the Marohasy site.

What is it with denialists and their bloody socks?

They are running into holes and developing a common odour.

BZZZT!

Stu2 fail.

Actually, 2Pid doesn't seem incoherent enough to be 'Debbie'/'Chameleon'.

I hope we're all marching somewhere today, or did yesterday?

BBD.
Why would it be important to post your score about my comment?
If Lotharsson, Frank or Sou want to know what Dr Marohasy thinks or want her to answer their questions I suggest the best way to do that is to ask her directly.
From what I have seen of her site, she does answer questions.
Lotharsson.
What is the purpose of speculating that I could be someone
else?
I also think your comment about the relationships between
crops and climate is highly ill informed. The regional seasonal
conditions, especially in relation to such things as precipitation are an extremely important variable to the succes or failure of crops. A less than one degree variance of an average national
temperature, calculated over decades is not.

I take it back...

Actually, 2Pid doesn’t seem incoherent enough to be ‘Debbie’/’Chameleon’.

I've tended to see that as a distinction. I think it's most likely that there's maybe something like a Bose-Einstein condensate of brain cells sharing the same state or at least the same memes ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

More misdirection from Stu2 - I've never asked anything of Dr Marohasy. I couldn't give a shit what she thinks about anything - I've seen her interviewed and reckon she has all the substance of soufflé, but if I did care what she thought, I would ask it at her blog.

What I actually asked, and Stu2 has spectacularly failed to answer is what Stu2 thinks about Marohasy's allegations and BOM's observations on their "substance". And since Stu2 either doesn't run a blog or at least hasn't alerted us to its existance, I can hardly post questions there, so here will have to do.

But I will happily defer to Lotharssons # 14. Address that or STFU, Stu2.

So, Stu 2, I see that you are unable to list the questions you think the BoM must still answer.

Called it.

Surely you do realise that practically everyone here is well aware of your habit of writing verbal checks that you can't cover - and discounts just about everything you write accordingly? Do you not care that you're seen as a habitual bullshitter, or do you care but see it merely as the cost of (hopefully) fooling a few readers with it?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

What is the purpose of speculating that I could be someone else?

No purpose. It's merely a curiosity that there are such strong resemblances in the obsessions and the expression thereof. It might suggest to some that the denialist pool in Australia is extremely small, or that Aussie denialists tend to be motivated by the same small set of issues - issues that have no bearing on the scientific case for concern.

(Also, if you read what I wrote you'd see that I said I didn't think you were the same person as Debbie and/or Chameleon.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

I also think your comment about the relationships between crops and climate is highly ill informed.

And Marohasy thinks the BoM is fraudulently making up reconstructed temperature records. Doesn't make either of them true.

Shall we take a look at your "think"?

A less than one degree variance of an average national temperature, calculated over decades is not.

Faaaaaaaaaaaaaark me!

You start out appallingly by being unwilling or unable to comprehend what was written - a trait that Marohasy sometimes exhibits. Marohasy said "a few degrees change". See that blockquote in italics in my previous comment? That's what we call a "quote". In case you didn't learn what they were in primary school, you don't get to pretend it says something other than what it says because those are the exact words that the quoted person used.

(And speaking of comprehension, I related that quote to climate, not purely to weather, which is also obvious in my comment.)

And since she said "a few degrees", and we haven't had that much warming since industrialisation began, it is not and can not be a quote about the warming over the last N decades (unless you think she really is so incompetent as to "exaggerate warming" over that period by several times - in which case you'd be calling for her to be "sacked" on that basis, right?) Accordingly, your attempt to rewrite it as being about "decades" is more of your trademark bullshit.

We could simply stop there and conclude that your argument about my comment is as full of obvious holes as Marohasy's argument that the BoM are making shit up, holes that desperately need plugging before the argument even reaches "plausible". And I haven't even touched on your own - irony of ironies - ignorance yet!

Change the climate by a few degrees in either direction and a great deal of our current agricultural understanding goes out the window, at which point it does not help that much to have good rainfall prediction (and BTW, one of the other characteristics of "a few degrees of warming" that we anticipate is much greater climate volatility, which makes predicting things like "rainfall levels" and "temperatures" a few months or a year or two ahead a lot more difficult so simply assuming that we can retain current levels of reliability of prediction when the climate "warms a few degrees" is ignorant and foolish.)

But your comment is ignorant in another way. I specifically mentioned rice to raise the non-climate point - that "a few degrees change" in this year's weather can be enough to pose grave difficulties for crops we rely on. In warm climates (such as parts of India and the surrounding regions), a few degrees extra warmth at night during the week or so when rice is flowering kills the crop, because rice has a maximum nighttime temperature it can tolerate during that week. And I suspect that farmers can tell you about the dangers to a bunch of other crops from a few degrees colder temperatures than normal at just the wrong time of year as well...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2

Why would it be important to post your score about my comment?

Which part of this at # went over your little head?

Please make your next comment a detailed response to Lotharsson’s #14. List the questions you claim are ‘unanswered’.

Posting anything else will be incontrovertible evidence of bad faith and dishonesty on your part.

You are done here. Time to go.

Lotharsson.
I think you will find that it's cold snaps at night that do far more damage to a flowering rice crop.
Rice likes warm weather.
You have also 'conflated' climate and weather in your comment when you discuss cropping.
While I agree that Dr Marohasy has probably overstated when she refers to a few degrees, she is not the only one who is guilty of doing that.
The point about regional and seasonal conditions being a more important variable for the success or failure of crops is still the actual point.
Frank D. Your comment @#7 was speculating about what Dr Marohasy thinks. My suggestion was to ask her.
Your question to me was answered.
Despite BBD's assertion otherwise, it is not necessary for me to waste time and space here relisting the questions that have been asked about BoM's treatment and reporting of Australian data. They are publicly available.

Stu2

I think you will find that it’s cold snaps at night that do far more damage to a flowering rice crop.
Rice likes warm weather.

Evidence contradicting you.

Despite BBD’s assertion otherwise, it is not necessary for me to waste time and space here relisting the questions that have been asked about BoM’s treatment and reporting of Australian data. They are publicly available.

So you can't back up your assertions but refuse to admit it. Shocked.

BBD.
That link takes me to a home page. I typed in rice into the search but out of 300+ articles I can't see one that claims a relationship between rice and warm weather.
I am fully aware that rice crops fail if the temps go below about 12 deg C for longer than a few hours when flowering.
Rice is grown in central NSW in Summer countries like Japan in Summer or America in Summer and also in monsoon tropical
regions because it thrives in hot weather.
Far more damage occurs from a cold snap during flowering. An extreme heat wave during flowering can affect yield but not to the extent that a cold snap does.
By all means, if you think you have it, please provide your contradictory evidence.
The questions being asked of BoM are not hard to find.
So far, BoM is only offering some circumstantial evidence about possible site moves.

I think you will find that it’s cold snaps at night that do far more damage to a flowering rice crop.

As per usual, I do not find. We've already demonstrated ad nauseum that "you think" many things that are not true and that you frequently fail to comprehend what was written, e.g.:

Rice likes warm weather.

Do you try hard to miss the point or does it come naturally? Let's run with your statement, which is so vague that it doesn't contradict anything I said so logically it can't form a valid counter-argument.

Do you imagine that because "rice likes [vaguely specified] 'warm' weather" that there's no limit to the warming that it will tolerate, especially at flowering time, especially in the kinds of regions I mentioned such as parts of India?

And do you imagine this, despite journal papers pointing out the limits being posted (e.g. at Deltoid in the past) and not being hard to find if you're mildly competent with a search engine?

And since you apparently couldn't find any references to research into what it will tolerate - and how often some rice growing regions already stray into that temperature range, and by implication how very much more often they will do so if we have "a few degrees more warming", why are you stupidly proceeding as if there's nothing to worry about on the basis that "rice likes warm weather" when you apparently have zero information relevant to that question?

The point about regional and seasonal conditions being a more important variable for the success or failure of crops is still the actual point.

It's not the point, it's your point, but you are determined not to see that your point doesn't invalidate mine. Climate drives weather including the "regional and seasonal variations"! A "few degrees warming" and we're waaaaaay outside of the climatic envelope in which most of our commercial scale agricultural crops evolved. Only a fool would say "that's really no problem, what really matters is regional and seasonal conditions" when those very conditions are driven by climate.

And I haven't even started on pointing out the other impacts of a few degrees of warming on agriculture (e.g. due to the boost it gives a lot of pests, or the detrimental changes in nutritional content in many crops we care about). I did mention increased volatility earlier, but the implications for commercial (and small scale) agriculture appear to have sailed way over your head.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

Despite BBD’s assertion otherwise, it is not necessary for me to waste time and space here relisting the questions that have been asked about BoM’s treatment and reporting of Australian data.

That might be true if your original assertion was unchallenged by anyone and a universally agreed upon list was widely known - but that's not the case now, is it?

Furthermore, this query came about because you asserted that questions were unanswered. You were then asked which ones you were thinking of. You declined to specify them. That makes it clear that you're either disingenuously JAQing off, or you don't actually know which valid questions remain unanswered but you're repeating the claim regardless.

Do you realise that this is a pattern you exemplify, and that it explains why most readers here think you're a bullshitter? You routinely shoot your mouth off with claims you aren't able to back up and aren't even willing to clarify when asked.

So far, BoM is only offering some circumstantial evidence about possible site moves.

Hopelessly wrong - and implies reliance on the fallacy of inappropriate placement of the burden of proof.

"So far" the BoM has offered up peer-reviewed publications about its methodology for anyone to peer-review, and provided a bunch of explanatory information on its website about how those methods work, and a whole bunch of data. The evidence indicating a site move is not necessary to demonstrate that they are not "making up global warming", as has been explained several times now. It is merely illustratory - but you're even rejecting that illustration, aren't you?!

As far as I can see Marohasy, Lloyd and you have not actually critiqued the methodology, nor demonstrated that it has not been applied in this case. To do that you have to demonstrate you understand it, which none of you appears to have done. And since none of you demonstrate understanding of it, logically none of you can argue that it has not been applied in this case because none of you can demonstrate what results the methodology should produce.

Marohasy is merely JAQing off about this - an admittedly effective strategy to mislead the gullible and the low information voters - and you are simply acting as a mindless bullshit repeater.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

Are you personally involved in agricultural research Lotharsson?
I am.
I am fully aware of research into crops like rice and the research shows a cold snap during flowering is a major cause of crop failure.
An incremental rise of a national average temperature is not.
Further, an extreme heat event during flowering will affect yields but is far, far less damaging than a cold snap that delivers temps below 12 deg C during flowering.
A significant proportion of rice R&D is focused on breeding cold tolerant varieties.
A significant proportion of wheat R&D is focused on frost
resistant varieties.
New cotton varieties mean that cotton can now be successfully commercially grown in colder climes.
Those are just 3 examples of a very long list of commercial crops - small scale and large scale.
None of it is sailing over my head or the heads of many others who work in this area.
I also note on another topic recently discussed here that figures released today have identified that China's CO2 emissions have outstripped the US & Europe combined.
According to your philosophy does that mean that Peter Burden from the ABC & others like Oreskes should publish suitably abject apologies for claiming that China's system of governance is better placed to tackle the issue of anthropogenic CO2 emissions?

Stupid said:

Are you personally involved in agricultural research Lotharsson?
I am.

it is just as well he does not identify himself or he would be the laughing stock of any agricultural research institute.

He obviously is either being dishonest or he does not follow recent research on temperature effects on rice.

Here is a paper which describes the effects of night time warming on rice yields:

http://www.pnas.org/content/101/27/9971.full

We analyzed weather data at the International Rice Research Institute Farm from 1979 to 2003 to examine temperature trends and the relationship between rice yield and temperature by using data from irrigated field experiments conducted at the International Rice Research Institute Farm from 1992 to 2003. Here we report that annual mean maximum and minimum temperatures have increased by 0.35°C and 1.13°C, respectively, for the period 1979–2003 and a close linkage between rice grain yield and mean minimum temperature during the dry cropping season (January to April). Grain yield declined by 10% for each 1°C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season, whereas the effect of maximum temperature on crop yield was insignificant. This report provides a direct evidence of decreased rice yields from increased nighttime temperature associated with global warming.

I wonder if he really is an "agricultural researcher" or is that just more of his dishonest nonsense?

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 21 Sep 2014 #permalink

Occasionally, a poster here will question the sense of contesting and disproving the increasingly threadbare "arguments" of those denying mainstream climate science - usually on the understandable basis of not feeding the trolls.

As a reasonably long-term reader and very rare poster, I really appreciate the time, energy and cortisol spent by all here who undertake this Sisyphean task.

From my perspective, it does benefit the casual reader to be able to access the kind of careful, referenced debunking of shoddy, motivated and illogical claims that generally occurs here and at other sites like HotWhopper.

IMHO, AGW- and CC-denying trolls are very well able to feed themselves - perhaps an ecological adaptation to the diet of utter crap on which they appear to sustain themselves?.

Ian - given the calibre of Stu2's contributions, I suspect "I am engaged in agricultural research" means "I just googled something about rice".

I am fully aware of research into crops like rice and the research shows a cold snap during flowering is a major cause of crop failure.

I must assume that you are also aware of all Internet traditions.

Now, note that I didn't object to your claim that it is "a major cause of crop failure" [in some parts of the world], and that I was referring to warm rice-growing regions, so you are throwing yet another red herring.

And since you're fully aware of agricultural research on rice and since I am not an agricultural researcher, how come you're apparently unable to recall or find any of the research on the impact of higher night time temperatures when I can? Were you aware of all of these papers, some of which appear to be rather relevant, when you dismissed the point? Since you're involved in agricultural research and have such high awareness, surely you did a proper literature search on the Web of Science at some point and surveyed what it reported, so why then do you misinterpret what I wrote and then try to imply that the research doesn't support what I said? And ignoring all of that, why aren't you even able to use a standard search engine to find previous Deltoid discussions of it after I pointed out it had been discussed here?

Further, an extreme heat event during flowering will affect yields but is far, far less damaging than a cold snap that delivers temps below 12 deg C during flowering.

So, since you're fully aware of research into rice crops you are already aware of this paper reporting a 95% reduction in yield from a 5C night time temperature rise. I don't know about you, but I would call losing the remaining 5% merely icing on the shit cake, not "far, far worse".

Now, would you care to discuss the impact of all the other ecosystem and climatic effects that are expected to affect human-useful yield, crop quality and reliability of production if we allow the globe to warm by "a few degrees"? Surely you've got a whole catalogue of research you're aware of to discuss?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Sep 2014 #permalink

I also note on another topic recently discussed here that figures released today have identified that China’s CO2 emissions have outstripped the US & Europe combined.

Changing the topic already? (And doing it by engaging in an obvious fallacy!) Can you spot it? Go on, have a punt if you can't reason it out!

And how about that list of questions you reckon remain unanswered by the BoM...? Will you dare clarify your claims or do you prefer to hide behind cowardly generic insinuations?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Sep 2014 #permalink

#9, this: " the snawer is “yes”." The snawer. May I use this, too?

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 22 Sep 2014 #permalink

May you use my fat fingers? Well, I need them to type incoherent babble, so maybe not.

But if you can find a use for snawer (is that pronounced like a certain roman prefect saying "snorer"?), then use it with my blessing.

:-)

PAGES-2K Consortium (2013) substantially confirmed MBH99. There were over 80 authors and multiple institutions involved worldwide.

Are they all conspiring to fake their results, Olaus?

Or is the tired old conspiracy theory endlessly peddled by McI a load of contrarian bollocks?

Do you know what Occam's Razor is, Olaus? Go and cut your throat with it.

No idea what happened with the link at #38. It was to a Science Daily article about Jarrod et al. (2010) which shows that increasing Summer night time temperatures will have an increasingly negative impact on Asian rice yields as the century progresses. Your attempts at misdirection can, as always, be dismissed as the usual deliberate attempt at distraction from the key issue:

The research team found evidence that the net impact of projected temperature increases will be to slow the growth of rice production in Asia. Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several locations.

Published in the online early edition the week of Aug. 9, 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report analyzed six years of data from 227 irrigated rice farms in six major rice-growing countries in Asia, which produces more than 90 percent of the world's rice.

"We found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop," said Jarrod Welch, lead author of the report and graduate student of economics at the University of California, San Diego.

This is the first study to assess the impact of both daily maximum and minimum temperatures on irrigated rice production in farmer-managed rice fields in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia.

"Our study is unique because it uses data collected in farmers' fields, under real-world conditions," said Welch. "This is an important addition to what we already know from controlled experiments."

"Farmers can be expected to adapt to changing conditions, so real-world circumstances, and therefore outcomes, might differ from those in controlled experimental settings," he added.

Around three billion people eat rice every day, and more than 60 percent of the world's one billion poorest and undernourished people who live in Asia depend on rice as their staple food. A decline in rice production will mean more people will slip into poverty and hunger, the researchers said.

"Up to a point, higher day-time temperatures can increase rice yield, but future yield losses caused by higher night-time temperatures will likely outweigh any such gains because temperatures are rising faster at night," said Welch. "And if day-time temperatures get too high, they too start to restrict rice yields, causing an additional loss in production."

"If we cannot change our rice production methods or develop new rice strains that can withstand higher temperatures, there will be a loss in rice production over the next few decades as days and nights get hotter. This will get increasingly worse as temperatures rise further towards the middle of the century," he added.

I see Oily Prat has struck again, regurgitating desperate from McIntyred.

McIntyred is a one pony town, oh that town wants its idiot back go to it OP.

Yes BBD.
Real world circumstances and therefore outcomes do differ.
Am I to extrapolate from these studies that you guys are posting here that you are convinced that incremental rises in night time temperatures are a major cause of crop failures in rice?
Does that mean that you think the bulk of research into developing better varieties is misdirected?
Are you actually denying that cold snaps below 12 deg C at flowering causes major damage to rice crops?

Am I to extrapolate from these studies that you guys are posting here that you are convinced that incremental rises in night time temperatures are a major cause of crop failures in rice?

You seem to have a major problem distinguishing between English tenses. If you can figure out what it is, you might be able to spot the fallacy I hinted at in #47, and then reassess the plausibility of your own speculations in #54.

Are you actually denying that cold snaps below 12 deg C at flowering causes major damage to rice crops?

Did you comprehend #46 at all? Do you comprehend what anyone else writes ever?

And BTW, we're all still on tenterhooks awaiting your Grand Reveal of the list of questions that you reckon the BoM hasn't answered. Can you help us all manage our excitement by giving us at a rough idea of how many weeks away that is?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Sep 2014 #permalink

Do I infer from comments above that McIntyre is still obsessed about MBH98 or MBH99? 15 years and umpteen even more robust hockey sticks later?

If so, that's pretty sad. Imagine realising that your primary achievement over the last 15 years was casting small and almost entirely unwarranted amounts of doubt on a paper that was out of date over a decade ago, while the earth itself gives your point of view the big middle finger?

Or even sadder - imagine being the guy who repeatedly and desperately tries to get people far more informed and intelligent than you are to fall for McI's schtick!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 22 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu are you actually implying that if higher temperatures can affect yields, lower temperatures can't? Because that's what it looks like from #54

By turboblocke (not verified) on 22 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2

What the fuck is wrong with your mind?

BBD, thanks for fixing my post ;-)

By turboblocke (not verified) on 23 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2,
Am I to extrapolate from your recourse to tired old rhetorical verballing that you are convinced that your latest bit of handwaving has come unstuck?
Does that mean that you think the bulk of posts pinning down your disingenousness are misdirected?
Are you actually denying that people here can see through your bullshit without even trying?

I see from HotWhopper that Judy has been playing with Punch lines again - using uncertainty in the same sense as Ridley (must be a turtle to have skin that though) and writers of some recent BBC articles.

Peabody Energy drops off the S&P 500 and the fluffy and adorable Robert E. Murray has a kitten:

Mining executives and leaders of related industries heard a series of bleak messages about the market for coal as they gathered on Monday in Pittsburgh for an annual conference at a time of increasing challenges from global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

A dire view came from one of the industry's most controversial figures and a vocal critic of environmental regulations. While Robert E. Murray, CEO of Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., highlighted regulatory challenges, others focused on economic pressures squeezing coal.

“We have the absolute destruction of the American coal industry. If you think it's coming back, you don't understand the business. Or you're smoking dope,” Murray told nearly 200 executives and analysts at the Platts 37th Coal Marketing Days conference.

James Fielding, a senior director at Standard & Poor's Rating Services, said thermal coal prices have bottomed out but should improve. He said tougher environmental rules won't be the “death knell” that Murray predicts, “but surely a challenge you're facing.”

Murray, who leads one of the country's biggest coal companies, has filed four lawsuits against the Obama administration over proposed environmental rules to limit pollution from coal-fired power plants.

He compared what he called the “regal administration of King Obama ” with the Nazis and called global warming a hoax.

“I've been getting a lot of pushback from the Obama administration,” Murray said. “It's like the Gestapo and SS regime.”

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Fresh from the Australian Climate Action Summit held in Brisbane last weekend I am still reeling from the stark realities laid bare there. Our profligate use of dwindling resources, reliance on fossil fuels, self-destructive back-pedalling from our governments at all levels which refuse to step into the brave new world of renewables and a media subverted by the fossil fuel industry all conspire to deliver really bad outcomes for people. The elephant is the room is, as ever, population growth, which, sadly, many in the environmental campaigning sector still refuse to address head on. We can but fight on. I hope you stalwart commenters continue to post here- you cannot know how valuable your scientific expertise, insight and general smarts are to the plodders like me.

#52...thanks for reminding me what a lazy irrelevance McIntyre's blog is. Lots of self-congratulatory armchair lawyering about Mann v Steyn sparked by a 'disinterested' account of the WMO graph.

An example of the consistency of standards on show:

Jean S: "There is no objection to the graph, which, according to Mann’s book of Fairy Tales, is undisputably misleading (crediting the whole figure to Jones).

He then quotes Mann from his 'Fairy Tales':

"..and Jones’s 1999 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report cover graph depicting past temperature trends was criticized as potentially “misleading” for merging proxy and instrumental data into a single curve — a conclusion nobody really disputed."

You see, Oily? "potentially "misleading'" is morphed into "undisputably misleading" by the Auditor's little friend. Right in the next line.

Stu 2 has gone awfully quiet. Perhaps he's busily beavering away at his list of unanswered BoM questions, or mulling over the startling concept that conditions that are too cold and conditions that are too hot can both cause severe damage to the same agricultural crop species?

Or maybe it was FrankD's penetrating parody at #60?

;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

Rose #64, population growth is a problem but reducing population growth to zero today will not solve AGW.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

None of those Lotharsson.
To help you stop worrying about me:
Stu 2 has a busy and productive life and therefore time management constraints mean that he can't continue to waste his time trying to help revive a blog site he used to like visiting.
This site has degenerated into endless open threads and way too vitriolic to allow any sensible discussion.
It's a pity but that's what's happened
You are particularly way too interested in arguing just for arguments sake and filling up the site with your speculative, pseudo psychological posturings.
But nonetheless, I have learnt something from you Lotharsson.
It's probably not what you think you have taught me.

You are particularly way too interested in arguing just for arguments sake and filling up the site with your speculative, pseudo psychological posturings.

It's always projection.

Still waiting on that list of the cases the BoM has to answer, incidentally. Or has this just disappeared down the denier memory hole?

Bill.
You do realise that randomly accusing people of projection is an example of speculative, pseudo psychological posturing don't you?
Further, if you don't already know or understand the questions being asked of BoM re the treatment of the Australian temperature data I am simply amazed.
Lotharsson, BBD et al may assume they have some type of special dispensation to set homework tasks but in reality they don't.
But enough of that.
You have a commenter here raising the issue of population growth. That is an interesting related topic considering the A in AGW stands for anthopegenic.
I think Rose makes a fair point about perspectives.
So far she has been told by turbobloke that it won't help fix AGW.

AnthRopogenic!!!

You are particularly way too interested in arguing just for arguments sake...

You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It’s probably not what you think you have taught me.

I don't think I've taught you anything, nor did I ever expect to be able to. Teaching you was never the point!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

You do realise that randomly accusing people of projection is an example of speculative, pseudo psychological posturing don’t you?

That might (or might not) have been the case, if it were demonstrably random or even speculative.
But it's neither. It's a reasonable inference based on the evidence you so helpfully provide in your comments.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

if you don’t already know or understand the questions being asked of BoM re the treatment of the Australian temperature data I am simply amazed.

Ah, the "I don't have to say what I meant because I expect everyone already knows it, even though they explicitly asked me for clarification" gambit. Haven't seen that desperate ploy tried on for a while.

You do realise this further cements your reputation as someone who shoots their mouth off and then tries to slink away when asked to support what they said? As someone who gives the strong impression of not even understanding what the accusations they refer to are, but who nevertheless loudly and repeatedly claims that they are not part of a mud-throwing JAQing off strategy but are serious and deserving of an answer?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

Nonetheless Lotharsson, I have learnt something quite valuable from your responses at this site.
What are your thoughts on Rose's comment @# 64 & the elephant in the room?

Stu 2 has a busy and productive life and therefore time management constraints mean that he can’t continue to waste his time trying to help revive a blog site he used to like visiting.

Does this mean you are p!ssing off? Halelujah!

BTW, I'm still waiting for this penny to drop for Stu 2:

The accusation of "arguing for arguments sake" requires attributing a motive to those it is levelled at.

A motive is a psychological phenomenon.

We do not have direct access to other people's internal mental states so we must infer them.

Many motives exist that are not obvious to other people.

Inferring this particular motive means ignoring a bunch of other potential motives that fit the evidence, a number of which arguably do so even better than the motive in the accusation.

Therefore, the accusation seems to be a lovely example of "speculative psychological posturing".

As I say, it's always projection! ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

What are your thoughts on Rose’s comment @# 64 & the elephant in the room?

What do you think are the questions BoM still has to answer?

And who do you think you are fooling by trying to wriggle out of clarifying what you meant?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 Sep 2014 #permalink

Lotharsson.
Are you claiming that you don't know the questions that have been asked?
As I suggested earlier, you could go to Dr Marohasy's site. Most of the questions are there.
There are references to letters she and others have written plus
any replies they have received.
The questions are related to BoM's treatment of the Australian temp data , especially the longer running data sets.
Rutherglen is only one of them.
These questions, plus many others about BoM's focus have
been asked by people living and working in rural and regional Australia for several years.
Marohasy, Abbot, Johnston et al have managed to ask some of
them via the media plus other places like OLO.
But seriously, I'm surprised that no one is interested in
discussing that elephant in the room that was raised by Rose.
That discussion would be far more interesting than your posturing at me.
I think that emancipating and educating girls and women in third world countries would be a sensible place to begin.
Just for a start -What woman in her right mind would choose to have upwards of 6 children if she was educated about contraception?

Al @ #77 - that certainly looked like a flounce! Woot!
But - Stu2 @#80
Drat. It was only one of those fake flounces favoured by the truly lame. It's like a wrestler "building momentum" by bouncing off the ropes, and just as believable.

Stu2
Are you claiming you don't know the answers to the questions that have been asked? Perhaps you should go to Dr Marohasy's site and see if she can help you with your homework.

Rutherglen is only one of them.

Rutherglen was asked and answered. Amberley - asked and answered. Williamtown - asked and answered. Care to name any others?

As to your last bit, are you saying that any woman who wants to have a large family is - by definition - insane? That women should not be allowed to have large families for their own good, because clearly their judgement is impaired. Have you always been so opposed to freedom of choice? How very fascist of you.

Are you claiming that you don’t know the questions that have been asked?

Your miscomprehension is superb.

That question is entirely orthogonal to what questions you allege still remain unanswered. Do you see how the "you allege" and the "remain unanswered" parts are not addressed by asking me - or by me answering - your question?

Do you see how, even if I wanted to dig through Marohasy's site, doing so would still not answer the "you allege" part?

(But as it happens I am not aware of the questions that have been asked other than the ones discussed here or at HotWhopper in depth, which is why I asked you to clarify. I don't seek out articles about climate science in The Australian or at Marohasy's site because there is ample evidence that they fall somewhere between poor and outright deceptive sources of information on that topic.)

The questions are related to BoM’s treatment of the Australian temp data , especially the longer running data sets.

And...this still doesn't answer my question. One might reasonably infer you simply cannot answer it.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 25 Sep 2014 #permalink

That discussion would be far more interesting than your posturing at me.

It's not posturing. It's attempting to hold you to standards of good faith discussion - or point out to others that you refuse to do so.

That discussion might or might not be interesting, but it's not at all surprising many people don't want to discuss it with you. You keep doing your best to give the impression of being dishonest and shifty about a number of topics here and that makes it look like your attempts to get a discussion going on a different topic are most probably an attempt to change the subject away from one where you appear to be way out of your depth.

If you build up the kind of reputation that you've built up for bad faith in discussion, then you're going to find that far fewer people want to discuss things with you and that those that are still willing pick and choose which specific topics they could be bothered discussing.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 25 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu 2, on the assumption that your refusal to clarify your earlier assertions is now crystal clear, here's a bit about that "elephant in the room":

As someone already said, stopping population growth won't take away the climate challenges as it's only one factor amongst many. It might slow down the rate at which those problems get worse - but it might not even do that, depending on how it is achieved and what other phenomena that triggers. Worse still, it doesn't even seem to be the dominant factor affecting future emissions because we can't expect deliberate measures to lead to reductions of more than about 20% in peak population below current expectations, whereas other factors are driving emissions up quite rapidly year after year, so a one-time 20% reduction only buys us a few extra years at most.

One simple way of starting to understand why is to look at it like this: total annual emissions are average emissions intensity per person times population size.

Fixing population size, even at (say) today's levels doesn't stop the growth in annual emissions, because the less developed nations of the world are trying to develop and (so far) that has always meant large increases in emissions intensity per person in those countries. If the developed nations wanted to they could make it a high investment (or even aid) priority to ensure that development is done in ways that limit emissions intensity increases as much as possible. We have plenty of technology that could help achieve this. But that's not happening - heck, we have politic and vested interests here privatising the profits whilst making the entire society pay a good portion of the indirect costs of using high emissions intensity fuels, so it's no surprise there's no action to help developing countries limit their intensity when those guys continue to get to screw us all over in the developed world.

In addition, developed countries tend to have low population growth rates, and developing ones tend to have high ones, so "stopping population growth" pretty much means focusing heavily on stopping population growth in developing countries.

There are two problems with that with respect to climate change impacts.

1) That's a losing battle right now. The reasons for higher population growth tend to make local sense and don't fit into your simplistic concept from afar of a what a right-minded woman might think, let alone how much control she has over the situation. A woman in many typical poorly developed countries who chooses to have six kids even if she is educated about contraception usually is far more in her right mind than one who chooses to have two kids, because of one or more of the following:

- having more kids improves her highly limited levels of financial security (especially security for her old age)
- child mortality rates are often high enough that having a couple of extra is good insurance, to put it rather bluntly
- the Catholic Church's anti-contraception dogma is culturally so strong that it's either unquestioningly considered "right mind", or violators can suffer severe consequences

There may be other reasons too.

IIRC when mortality rates improve family sizes tend to drop, and the same happens if you systemically improve "social security". It also seems to be the case that when you improve social security and economic prospects along with increasing education levels people tend to pay less attention to Catholic dogma (which is heavily ignored on that particular point by Catholics in the developed world).

So the population growth side of the equation will probably take care of itself if developed countries succeed in improving their health, social security and economic prospects. That would explain why global population projections have it levelling off this century, and then declining slightly over several more decades. The anticipated peak is very roughly about 1.5x the current population.

2) Even if population growth was stalled in those places that won't do a huge amount to reduce total emissions because the average emissions intensity in those places is pretty low, unlike in developed countries. You usually don't get a big reduction in a total by focusing on reducing the number of the smallest class of contributors...

And it's not clear that the emissions intensity side of the equation will take care of itself either. The emissions intensity for an American/Australian/European is a LOT more than 1.5x the intensity of someone in the poorly developed world. depending on which specific countries we're talking about it can be 15-20x or even higher. There's waaaaaay more scope for emissions intensity reduction in the developed world. On the other hand, there's way more scope for emissions intensity increase in the developing world if they follow our development path (especially if we don't take measures to ensure the developed world develops without large intensity increases, which we haven't done and which is resulting in pretty large intensity increases for rapidly developing countries right now). The developed world isn't showing leadership here, so it would be a bit rich to blame the developing world if their intensity ratchets up to ours, when we've socialised the large costs of 250 years of development across the entire globe already and their historical contribution has been tiny in comparison.

And as I hinted earlier, it may even be that measures designed to reduce peak population levels from what they would otherwise be cause changes that lead to increases in emissions intensity per person that do vastly more than offset the imputed gains from reducing the peak population level.

But apart from those two reasons, there's something else to ponder that indicates population growth isn't plainly the climate change elephant it's often considered to be:

We need to have a roughly 100% reduction in global emissions intensity by mid to late century.

And if we plug zero emissions intensity into that equation, we see that it doesn't matter what population size we have from an emissions perspective. (It certainly does matter in in the sense that the earth we can't support any population size we can imagine, so we would be foolish to ignore it. There are a number of other finite resources we are currently highly dependent on and if and when we run out of those without finding a replacement the size of population that the earth can support will suffer a large drop.)

That's why I pointed out at the top that a one-time 20% reduction in population doesn't buy us much from a climate perspective. All we get is a few extra years before things are as bad as they would have been without it. That's why population growth may be an enormous elephant in the room for long term global sustainability, but it's not a major climate change elephant because that problem will become very serious this century regardless of whether we put the brakes on population or not.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 25 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu you said in relation to my #67 that "'So far she has been told by turbobloke that it won’t help fix AGW."
That's a rather startling interpretation of what I said. Could you please explain how reducing population growth to zero today would solve AGW considering that the current population's emissions are already responsible for some locked in warming?

IMO "population growth" is a cynical ploy to justify doing nothing as it implies that the real problem is people who aren't even born yet. Why should we make an effort now when it will all come to naught because of those multitudes of unborn yet to come?

The reality as mentioned above is that it's the product of people multiplied by their environmental footprint that's the real problem. Cutting the size of the footprint could happen today, cutting the number of people is going to take longer.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 25 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2

Lotharsson, BBD et al may assume they have some type of special dispensation to set homework tasks but in reality they don’t.

Oh you fucking little worm.

Asking you to answer questions that arise from your own assertions isn't 'setting homework'.

Trying to get you to meet normal standards of honest discourse isn't 'setting homework'.

Instead all we get is an endless litany of dishonest evasions.

As for the pathetically obvious attempt to troll on with another diversion (population), well, what did we expect? The now-desperate troll has seized the first opportunity it could to wriggle off the hook it is snagged on. Whining all the while, I might add.

That said, thanks to Lotharsson for the considered and comprehensive comment at #85. If we are going to move one, once again allowing the troll to evade any and every question arising from its noise, then at least this comment provides the parameters for a sane and productive discussion. One from which, by rights, the troll should be excluded because of its incessant bad faith.

Frank D @ # 82.
You're kidding I hope?
Women in underprivileged countries have virtually no choices, including learning about contraception.
Of course women should also have the choice to have larger families.
I would categorically oppose legislation that decreed something like that from either extreme.
My point was that emancipating and educating women could help to mitigate the rapid rise in population.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with arguing for legislation to limit women's choices.
I would argue that emancipating and educating women would help increase their ability to choose .

Just for a start -What woman in her right mind would choose to have upwards of 6 children if she was educated about contraception?

Women in underprivileged countries have virtually no choices, including learning about contraception.

Please, please, learn something about these topics before shooting your mouths off. The worldwide average number of children per woman is already less than 3.

This video from a statistician puts it briefly and entertainingly. In the last 2 mins of this 13 min video he explains how and why population is still increasing, and will continue to do so for a few decades, while the number of children is stable or decreasing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78

It's obvious once you see it, but it still needs emphasising.

Adelady.
By highlighting that comment, are you arguing that women in underprivileged countries do have good choices and they don't need to be emancipated or have access to education?
A worldwide average about family sizes of course includes western style democracies and countries like China & Russia where females have acces to education and contraception and
where family units are smaller either by choice or government decree.
Of course there are other factors that influence population numbers not least the advances in medicine and the consequent rises in longevity.
None of this means that it is not a good idea to emancipate and educate women in underprivileged countries.

You’re kidding I hope?

I'm just reading the words, Stu2

What woman in her right mind would choose to have upwards of 6 children if she was educated about contraception?

Ignoring the rhetorical framing as a question, you are opining that any woman educated about contraception who chooses to have upwards of six children is "not in her right mind".
If you didn't mean to say that, now is your chance to distance yourself from this stupidity. If you meant some particular subset of women, then now is your chance to clarify.

I know a number of women who are educated about and have access to contraception, who have the means to support a large family, who find pregnancy easy and even enjoyable, and who enjoy caring for small children, and who have chosen have more than six children. Not my cup of tea, personally, but that's their choice. But you - you arrogant shit - think they are "not in their right minds".

The question is not whether I am kidding, but whether you are. Clarify? Recant? Stick to your guns? Make your choice.

Oh, and to head off the obvious diversion, this has nothing to do with underpriviliged women with little-to-no choice about having large families, per your squirming at #89, so don't try that dodge. You excluded that group - about which you may have a point - when you said "if she was educated about contraception?"

What you said is that women only have large families because they don't have access to contraception or because they are "not in their right minds". Don't blame me if you've just realised this is a profoundly stupid position.

Frank D.
I actually agreed with you that of course it's about choices.
I apologise that you have found my choice of words so offensive.
That was not my intention.
But thank you for conceding that in relation to women in underprivileged countries, which was relevant to that flippant remark, that I may have a point.
I sincerely believe that emancipating and educating girls and women pays major dividends for societies and for environmental issues. One of those dividends is that family units tend to be smaller on average and would therefore have some impact on population growth.

Please, please, learn something about these topics before shooting your mouths off.

Perhaps this plea should be a daily automated post here? ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 25 Sep 2014 #permalink

LOL - Stu2 is getting tangled up in his own sophistry. He thinks he said that third world families are large because they don't have access to contraception.

Me, I'm just reading what he wrote. The comment I seized on (contrary to Stu2's projection, I didn't find it offensive, just remarkably stupid, even by his execrably low standards) was about women who do have access to contraception, and therefore did not pertain to the third world women he thinks he was talking about. Let's jsut remind people, shall we:

Just for a start -What woman in her right mind would choose to have upwards of 6 children if she was educated about contraception?

In Stu2's world, women who have access to contraception but choose to have large families are insane.

This would go away if Stu2 just disowned the comment. Blew it off as badly-phrased or ill-thought-out. But we know he won't, he'll go on pretending he said something else, because he can't admit that you might have blundered on any point, however trivial.

What is it with deniers and their inability to admit any error? I wonder if he knows that it makes him look even more of a fool, and a douche to boot?

Stu2 - you know, now might be a good time for you to drop this by going back to your claims about BOM. I'll happily drop this if you go back to that - I'm sure BBD is waiting with bated breath.

:-)

Well,according to StuPid, the best growing area for Rice would be Death Valley, Calif....

It likes warm weather? Well warm there!

"IMO “population growth” is a cynical ploy to justify doing nothing as it implies that the real problem is people who aren’t even born yet."

No, it blames the third world for the problem. After all, they know that the birth rate is high (and ignore the child mortality rate, natch).

But in saving CO2 production, it's 10x more effective to kill StuPid than to stop a child in Africa being born.

It's odd that those liking the population "elephant in the room" are also generally the ones most against a "per capita" definition of who needs to change first...

^ What Wow said.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 Sep 2014 #permalink

Not necessarily per capita per se, because they'll point out China's new high p/c emissions happily enough.

Naturally their own footprint is both invisible and inviolable. Accordingly, what they really don't want to do is analyze who's actually benefitting from China's emissions; e.g. why is the carbon associated with that iPhone in your pocket or the widescreen TV in your lounge sheeted to China's account?

Bill on the previous page remarked:

why is the carbon associated with that iPhone in your pocket or the widescreen TV in your lounge sheeted to China’s account?

Because that is what is about all that is possible now. But when an adequate global pricing mechanism is introduced, there will be strong incentives for proper carbon auditing. At that point, more realistic numbers for where carbon emissions are being consumed (I'm not sure that phrasing makes sense, but you know what I mean) will become available.

And when the west's numbers balloon and China's shrink, I predict shrieks about boondoggles and wealth redistribution and the evils of global government.

Call me Mystic Meg...

Actually Wow, Lotharsson et al, that's incorrect.
In my line of work and business I am CO2 negative. I sequester far far more than the per capita average.
Just for a start, my wife and I are personally responsible for planting over 40,000 native trees.
But perhaps killing Wow would be 10 X more effective ?
Bill is correct that a broad brush per capita figure does not necessarily outline the complete story.
According to the latest information released in NY recently, Australia contributes less than 1.5% of human global emissions yet Australia has a high per capita figure. That is most likely because the bulk of Australia's population lives on the Eastern coastal fringe and is comparitively highly urbanized.
There is also further evidence that Australia as a whole continent is most likely a net carbon sink.

In my line of work and business I am CO2 negative

Good to hear.

FWIW, I was primarily referring to:

it blames the third world for the problem

and:

It’s odd that those liking the population “elephant in the room” are also generally the ones most against a “per capita” definition of who needs to change first…

I'd say they're also typically against a total carbon emissions budget approach because that makes it very difficult to avoid consideration of per capita emissions. And typically they're doubly against any version that takes into account what portion of the total emissions budget different countries have already used.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 27 Sep 2014 #permalink

My comments about helping to emancipate & educate women is not about blaming the third world for the emissions problem Lotharsson.
I'm fairly sure that was not why Rose raised population growth either.
I'm finding the terminology 'those liking the elephant in the room' a rather strange comment?
Shouldn't 'doing something about it' ( human global emissions) be a suite of practical actions?
Your 'already used' stance is really not much different to Wow's 'blaming the unborn' comment.

My comments about helping to emancipate & educate women is not about blaming the third world for the emissions problem Lotharsson.

I don't think anyone thought they were - myself included, because that was not my point. Emancipation and education are laudable goals in and of themselves.

But emancipation and education came about in your discussion of population growth (which is primarily in the 3rd world), and in turn population growth had been tied to climate change. Some tie these together cynically, as discussed in earlier comments, and others genuinely think this is a major factor in the challenge of climate change when it is not, as discussed in earlier comments. It is important to understand both sides of the preceding sentence.

Shouldn’t ‘doing something about it’ ( human global emissions) be a suite of practical actions?

Certainly.

But it should also be a near optimal select of practical actions.

My earlier long comment pointed out that population growth is a small factor in climate change and one that is very slow to respond to action. That compares with much larger factors that (if we were serious about tackling) are much faster to respond to action. Furthermore population growth is a factor that is already expected to "fix itself" and climate change can be fixed in the time frames that matter without changing the expected population profile over time. Accordingly tackling population growth is not necessary to effectively tackle climate change so focusing a lot of energy on it if your aim by doing so is to combat climate change is a strongly suboptimal choice. (Focusing energy on it if your goal is emancipation and education is excellent. I'm right with you on that one.)

Your ‘already used’ stance is really not much different to Wow’s ‘blaming the unborn’ comment.

I'm struggling to see how that can be, so you'll need to help me. I assume you mean turboblocke's comment at #86, which Wow quoted at #98 - neither of them approving of that tactic. Note that turboblocke's comment continued (elaborating on the cynical rhetoric that invokes population growth as a reason not to do anything serious about climate change that one sees from time to time):

Why should we make an effort now when it will all come to naught because of those multitudes of unborn yet to come?

To my mind that viewpoint is pretty much the opposite of accounting for who already "shit in the atmospheric pot" passing on their costs to the entire earth whilst accruing the benefits to themselves (and their descendants), and continuing on by using similar accounting to help apportion who gets to do so with the limited amount we can shit into that pot in the future before things get dire.

Doing that is important if we wish to use (say) the standard economics for dealing with uncaptured negative externalities as part of an attempt to create some form of intergenerational and even international equity.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2

Instead of continuing with your arguments from ignorance why not take simple steps and study Human Development Reports which have been issued since 1990.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/global-reports

Download some early ones, eg. 1999 and that for 2014 and compare.

In the 1999 edition there is a figure on page 38 entitled 'Widening gaps between rich and poor since the early 19th century', study it.

Elsewhere in that document is the exhortation:

Multinational
corporations need to be
brought within the frame
of global governance, not
just the patchwork of
national laws, rules and
regulations

pay attention.

Have things improved through to 2014?

Inequality, not population is the issue for it is the root cause of much wasteful conflict which destroys rather than builds or grows. When will the likes of greedy bankers and oilygarchs realise that you cannot eat money, most of it being virtual anyway, or drink oil or breath fracked gas.

The Little Earth Book has a particularly illustrative diagram on page 61. My 4th edition has anyway.

Lionel.
While I agree that inequality is an issue, you still seem to be operating under the misconception that you are one of the 'have nots' when in the big picture you are actually one of the 'haves'.
I note your reference to 'global governance'.

Stu2

Why do you have a problem with this?

Multinational corporations need to be brought within the frame of global governance, not just the patchwork of national laws, rules and regulations

Multinational corporations use the patchwork to exploit workforces, evade tax and bugger up the environment without paying for the damage.

Why wouldn't it be better for the common weal to ensure that multinational corporations don't take the piss?

I'm all for the little guy. Aren't you?

I note your reference to ‘global governance’.

And...?

So far IIRC, over many months, you've led a merry dance that has managed to avoid demonstrating that you know what the term means, but that gives every appearance of buying into overwrought conspiracy theories based on misunderstanding the term. IIRC Chameleon did the same when she was here, and so does Betula every few months.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 28 Sep 2014 #permalink

I have seen no evidence that either:
1) Big government or big bureaucracy or a centralised govt achieves any better outcomes for 'the little guy' than a functioning democracy or
2).A 'top down approach' achieves good outcomes in the NRM space.
Further - at no point at any time have I argued that 'global governance' is some type of conspiracy.

Big government or big bureaucracy or a centralised govt achieves any better outcomes for ‘the little guy’ than a functioning democracy or

That's (a) an obviously false dichotomy, and (b) not obviously related to what was being discussed (perhaps due to your confusion about what "global governance" means). Accordingly it doesn't seem to address the question you were asked.

Further – at no point at any time have I argued that ‘global governance’ is some type of conspiracy.

We've had this discussion before. Those who advance "conspiracy theories" in the popular sense of the term quite often don't allege that their theories are "conspiracies" in the formal sense of the term. However, this does not mean that their "conspiracy theories" do not fit the popular sense of the term. Your point doesn't address what I said, because I didn't allege that you claim that "'global governance is some type of conspiracy".

If you want to be understood, you also might want to clarify what "the NRM space" means to you, and what "top down approaches" mean within that context.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 29 Sep 2014 #permalink

Oddly enough, I had some people come to my door on Sunday morning, wittering on about global government (not governance - unlike some, I understand the distinction).

It seemed an odd thing to be door-to-dooring about, but then they segued into a dominionist spiel that would fit right in with the Cornwall Alliance manifesto. It was about then I registered that they were wearing short sleeved shirts with ties, and wished them a safe trip beck to Utah as I closed the door.

But it got me thinking - I do find it funny that some of the people most paranoid about some fictitious global government are actually the ones most keen to see one come about - just so long as it is their global government...

And Stu2 dodges the question as always.

International agreements between sovereign states can constitute a global regulatory framework ("global governance") for constraining the worst excesses of mulitnationals.

So why wouldn’t it be better for the common weal to ensure that multinational corporations don’t take the piss?

Why are you arguing that the exploitation of humanity and the environment by large corporations be permitted to continue unchecked?

Surely that is immoral, if not actually insane (unless you represent said vested corporate interests, which frankly I doubt; you are too stupid to employ).

About those 40,000 trees: did you plant them on your own account or for someone else? Because the "carbon credit/neutrality" can't be counted twice .

By turboblocke (not verified) on 29 Sep 2014 #permalink

NRM is an acronym for Natural Resource Management.
Top down means management, compliance and regulatory power is in the hands of centralised (and often completely disconnected) bureaucracies.
Pretending that 'governance' means something very different to 'government' (especially in practical application and
implementation) is an example of being completely
disconnected and looks quite Orwellian.
The 'little guy' is no better served by big bureaucracy or big government.
Big multinationals OTOH prefer working with big government and, very unfortunately, vice versa.
The concept of 'user pays' in NRM is misfiring. The actual user
is the consumer of the end product.
For a simple example. Consumers don't consume coal or irrigation water, they pay for and consume electricity and food.

Frank D
Ourselves & completely at our own expense (no govt assistance & nothing at all to do with govt regulation).

The usual evasions from Stu2:

Pretending that ‘governance’ means something very different to ‘government’ (especially in practical application and implementation) is an example of being completely
disconnected and looks quite Orwellian.

Bollocks. You are still arguing against international agreements between governments (aka global governance) and still pretending that global governance = global government when you have been shown that it does not.

This is either a mark of profound stupidity and comprehensional deficit or of profound intellectual dishonesty and moral deficit.

The sentence is traditionally ... defined as a word or group of words that expresses a complete idea and that includes a subject and a verb.

grammar.about.com

Stu2's post at #16 satisfies neither requirement.

Pretending that ‘governance’ means something very different to ‘government’ (especially in practical application and implementation) is an example of being completely disconnected and looks quite Orwellian.

Damn the bloody Orwellian dictionary makers! Can't trust a single word they say define. They're obviously secretly in the pay of Big Governance(tm), helping to deceive the little guy into thinking there's a difference between government and governance so they won't notice the revolution taking place.

And speaking of that, it took place years ago! Hasn't everyone noticed the suppression of the democratic rights of the common man due to the global governance government of ozone-destroying chemicals that took over the world when the Montreal Protocol was introduced waaaaay back in 1989? Democracy died that day, and all of these complaints that trade agreements that explicitly allow foreign corporations to sue States in secretive tribunals and even say that the courts are not allowed to rule the tribunals or their resulting decisions unconstitutional are a false flag propaganda smokescreen put out by the forces of Big Governance to try and distract citizens from those responsible for the real loss of sovereignty all those years ago.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 30 Sep 2014 #permalink

The ‘little guy’ is no better served by big bureaucracy or big government.

I think that's naïve, simplistic, ideological rather than based on evidence - and quite often counter-factual.

Smaller governments (for example) spend less on (for example) enforcing tax regulations against (for example) big multinational corporations (thanks Tony and Joe for reducing our ATO workforce and their ability to do this in the name of smaller government, BTW). That doesn't serve the little guy well, because the little guy ends up paying a higher proportion of taxes (not being able to avoid them as efficiently as the large companies can), or receiving less government services (because the Treasurer disingenuously cries "we're broke" and instead of reducing government support to Big Business screws the little guy), or both.

And that's just for starters. You can find numerous examples where many of the the powerful (people or corporations) will screw the little guys as hard as they can because they have more resources they can devote to finding ever more interesting and efficient ways to do the screwing, unless and until there is a system in place to regulate them and enforce regulations. Such a system necessarily involves more bureaucracy than not having such a system.

Also, you still don't seem to have realised that the "size" of a government has nothing to do with whether the nation has a functioning democracy or not - never mind that there's a decent argument that the countries that appear to have the best functioning democracies often have governments that Small Government advocates decry as being "too Big" for their liking.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 30 Sep 2014 #permalink

Consumers don’t consume coal or irrigation water, they pay for and consume electricity and food.

The generators who use coal are the direct users of coal and they pay for it. Then they treat it as a business expense and pass their expenses on the consumer as part of the price they charge.

Perhaps you can explain what you think the "backfiring" here is, as it's not obvious to me. In order to do that would you let us know what you think "user pays" is in this context and what issues it is intended to address?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 30 Sep 2014 #permalink

Lionel...you still seem to be operating under the misconception that you are one of the ‘have nots’...

Stu2, now you are being absurd in your mendacity, wherever have I given you that idea?

So according to you, by championing the cause of disadvantaged groups, which covers a wide gamut, I make out that I am equally disadvantaged. That is just plain perverse.

Little wonder you cannot grasp the nuances of climate sciences when you cannot even sort that out.

Well, at least we've lost the idiotic claim that rice would like it best in the middle of Death Valley...

Small mercies indeed!

I think Stu's #16 was in reply to my #14. If so, Bravo!

By turboblocke (not verified) on 30 Sep 2014 #permalink

Wow.
It was actually you who claimed rice would like it best in death valley.
I simply pointed out that cold snaps at flowering is a much bigger problem for yields than an incremental increase of global average temperatures over decades.
Lotharsson.
The word I used was 'misfiring'.
Of course any increases are passed on to consumers. That's because the consumer is the actual user.
All of you appear to be labouring under the misconception that all our environmental and economic woes can be fixed by some type of international benevolent bureaucracy, formed by benovelent international agreements that will curb the excesses of multinationals.

Stupid said:

I simply pointed out that cold snaps at flowering is a much bigger problem for yields than an incremental increase of global average temperatures over decades.

That comment just shows he is as ignorant about climate change as he is about rice. The globe is warming, thus there will be less severe cold spells and a higher night time temperature. This has been shown to lower rice yields.

Is he as stupid as he seems or is it more a case that he is a dishonest SOB?

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 30 Sep 2014 #permalink

Ian,

I agree. Stu2's argument is so utterly vacuous scientifically that it barely deserves a riposte. Rapid warming is challenging species to adapt at rates far faster than many, perhaps most, can respond to. To argue that cold snaps pose more of a threat than warming and its attendant heat waves and changes in precipitation regimes as well as on pollinators and other higher trophic level consumers (in this case mutualists) that form integral parts of food webs is just another example of complete stupidity. The only good point is that neither I nor my fellow scientists take this kind of argument seriously. The downside ids that there are probably lots of people out there who think like Stu2; in other words rank ignorance.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 30 Sep 2014 #permalink

Stu2

I simply pointed out that cold snaps at flowering is a much bigger problem for yields than an incremental increase of global average temperatures over decades.

On the previous page, I linked to this article about a study by Welch et al. (2010) and quoted the following:

The research team found evidence that the net impact of projected temperature increases will be to slow the growth of rice production in Asia. Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several locations.

Published in the online early edition the week of Aug. 9, 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report analyzed six years of data from 227 irrigated rice farms in six major rice-growing countries in Asia, which produces more than 90 percent of the world’s rice.

“We found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop,” said Jarrod Welch, lead author of the report and graduate student of economics at the University of California, San Diego.

This is the first study to assess the impact of both daily maximum and minimum temperatures on irrigated rice production in farmer-managed rice fields in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia.

“Our study is unique because it uses data collected in farmers’ fields, under real-world conditions,” said Welch. “This is an important addition to what we already know from controlled experiments.”

“Farmers can be expected to adapt to changing conditions, so real-world circumstances, and therefore outcomes, might differ from those in controlled experimental settings,” he added.

Around three billion people eat rice every day, and more than 60 percent of the world’s one billion poorest and undernourished people who live in Asia depend on rice as their staple food. A decline in rice production will mean more people will slip into poverty and hunger, the researchers said.

“Up to a point, higher day-time temperatures can increase rice yield, but future yield losses caused by higher night-time temperatures will likely outweigh any such gains because temperatures are rising faster at night,” said Welch. “And if day-time temperatures get too high, they too start to restrict rice yields, causing an additional loss in production.”

“If we cannot change our rice production methods or develop new rice strains that can withstand higher temperatures, there will be a loss in rice production over the next few decades as days and nights get hotter. This will get increasingly worse as temperatures rise further towards the middle of the century,” he added.

I am fed up with you simply repeating your strawman crap from one page to the next in spite of continous correction. The endless spew of intellectual dishonesty is boring and repellent.

It was actually you who claimed rice would like it best in death valley.

Indeed, but despite what you seem to hope, that doesn't get you off the hook.

I simply pointed out that cold snaps at flowering is a much bigger problem for yields than an incremental increase of global average temperatures over decades.

No, that's a rather disingenuous summation in this context. You claimed here, right after talking about cold snaps, that:

Rice likes warm weather.

You did not qualify that statement. Wow simply took your claim at face value in order to point out the (take your pick) absurdity, ignorance, carelessness, over simplification, one-sided analysis etc. If you're going to disclaim what Wow wrote, you need to disclaim what you yourself wrote or modify your claim accordingly.

But that would mean implicitly acknowledging one or more of absurdness, recklessness, ignorance, one-sided analysis, over simplification etc. And since you are disingenuously repeating your claim about cold snaps without taking into account any of the discussion and evidence that followed, I take it you won't be bothering with any of that careful clarification or restatement business either?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

That’s because the consumer is the actual user.

So, by "actual user" you don't mean the entity that actually uses the substance in question, you mean the end user of the product created by the entity that actually uses the substance in question? OK, let's run with that definition.

The word I used was ‘misfiring’.

Fair enough, but doesn't answer my question. I asked:

In order to do that would you let us know what you think “user pays” is in this context and what issues it is intended to address?

And if we get that far:

Perhaps you can explain what you think the “backfiring” "misfiring" here is, as it’s not obvious to me.

As it stands I don't understand what you're trying to say, which rules out ever being swayed by your argument.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Lotharsson #30

From your link:

None are quite as dogmatic as Newman however. “Nothing short of a thorough government-funded review and audit, conducted by independent professionals, will do” trumpeted Newman in his column for The Australian.

And when BoM is exonerated, Newman must of course resign in disgrace.

BBD, from outside Australia you might not understand what Newman is really advocating.

The current government has had a series of "reviews" and "audits" of various things, performed by "independent" groups headed by people who are apparently "professionals" in their field - just (usually) not in the field they are auditing or reviewing.

As one example, we had an audit of government services headed by a reasonably prominent businessman (also a climate science denier like Newman - it's apparently necessary to get that kind of gig from this government). This commission found that Aussies visit the GP too often on average and should be charged an extra tax to dissuade them from doing so.

There were just three teensie weensie problems with that finding. Well, three for starters...

1) They failed to correctly count how many times on average Aussies visited the doctor because they incompetently conflated the number of Medicare services with the number of visits, not realising (as any medical expert would have told them) that some visits result in multiple services. Unsurprisingly, being caught in such a schoolboy howler did not seem to cause them any embarrassment, let alone cause them to reassess their argument.

2) The evidence that they apparently did not bother to consult indicates that seeing the GP earlier rather than later is far cheaper for the system in the long run, because problems treated later tend to be more serious and get expensive very quickly. A professional in the field could have pointed them to that kind of evidence.

3) And this one is a doozy. The extra tax was positioned as a "user pays" measure that was supposed to discourage individuals from unnecessary visits to the GP, but the necessity of a visit can only be determined by a trained medical professional - and that requires visiting a fucking GP to find out.

Truly, this was an epic intellectual clusterfuck aided and abetted by a strong case of Dunning-Kruger Effect, but that didn't matter to the government. It gave the government the headline it wanted and the fig leaf to "justify" its preferred policies regardless of how moronic the argument itself was.

We had similar clusterfucks in our recent "independent" review of the earlier plans for a national broadband fibre to the home network, staffed largely by ex-colleagues of the new Minister and (IIRC) people with relationships to the existing copper network incumbent who have screwed Australia over for a generation or more. The current government is desperate to kill off fibre to the home. That report included the arguments - apparently made with a straight face - that future average bandwidth requirements will be slightly less than today's actual levels which coincidentally meant that the minister's cobbled together network just might deliver theoretical bandwidth levels sufficient for many houses if you squint at the numbers just right, and that a mashed together network composed of several different technologies that we already know will need to be replaced in the future is a better option because it's "more flexible" than laying fibre everywhere we can now because they say it can take advantage of new technologies in the future. (Unsurprisingly they did not hazard a guess at the plausibility of new non-fibre-related technologies that will outperform new technologies that run over fibre either in terms of price, maintainability, congestion management, latency or bandwidth, because your average communications professional would have laughed them out of the building.)

So when Newman calls for an audit "conducted by independent professionals", he's calling for the same kind of fig leaf to be produced by some professionals (probably in some other field) who are "independent" only in the sense that they're not formally members of the government (but can be relied upon to produce a finding entirely in line with the government's ideology), regardless of whether that requires the same kind of intellectual clusterfuck to "produce" or not.

They're literally not even trying to mount a serious argument. Newman's schtick is only designed to convince the highly gullible and the seriously under- and mis-informed.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Oh, and of course, based on those other clusterfuck reviews, no-one involved will resign in disgrace.

And from the government's point of view, why should they?

They gave it exactly what it wanted. If anything, they'll get a promotion.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Fellas, a new dangerous climate problem may have surfaced. No child has never experienced the acclerating global warming:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/weather-satel…

This is awful. I hate it when kids are deprived of culture. What shall we do to prevent this lobal cultural artifact going into oblivion? I'm all for a cultural rescue program in the hands of UN. Hands up if you agree!

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

@Olaus,

Indeed Olaus, it brings to mind the prescient words of that researcher at UAE back in 2000.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing…

"Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90, and it is estimated that they will increase by 0.2C every decade over the coming century"

Oh dear, children just aren't going to know what Global Warming is it would seem.

The article continues "We don't really have wolves in Europe any more, but they are still an important part of our culture and everyone knows what they look like," he said.

Which, I'm assuming, is a result of engaging a good PR firm. There's a lesson here for the CAGW crowd if they want avoid being downgraded to "Urban Myth" status.
;)

GSW, I'm a big fan of cultural preservation, especially when the endangered artifacts have relevance on a global scale, not to mention being on the brink of extinction (sic!). :-)

I wonder if Jeff has experienced it first hand? ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

@Olaus #38

" I’m a big fan of cultural preservation"

Are you voicing support for a possible "Museum of Global Warming" ? Kids these days don't know about Global Warming because, well, there hasn't been any! I like these kind of living history experiences - kids could go in one experience "space" (~0.6C below current room temp) and then transition thru to a second experience space +0.6C warmer!

It's one of those things that, until you've experienced the full horror of 50yrs of warming compressed into a few seconds that you realise just how scarey it all was.

I don't think about what jeff has experienced with his first hand, as far as I'm concerned he's never failed to demonstrate what a complete w****r he is, whatever hand he uses. And I don't think he can get out of that by claiming he's merely "a communist" as a defence.

I sure do GSW! :-D A museum has to be crammed with realistic interactive stuff like you suggest. Such things have great pedagogical advantages, but there has to be an age limit, me thinks. Kids under the age of 15 can rarely handle a full accelerating 0,6C warmer experience.

And the same applies to my planned "room of doom" where texts stemming from the Jeffies of the time will plaster the walls. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

@Olaus #39,

Thanks Olaus, good article from Nature. I can't help thinking that, and I'm sure no one else has thought of this, the only way out of this mess is to form "some type of international benevolent bureaucracy" to help regulate our lives and show us where we all went wrong. Cretins.
;)

Lotharsson

So when Newman calls for an audit “conducted by independent professionals”, he’s calling for the same kind of fig leaf to be produced by some professionals (probably in some other field) who are “independent” only in the sense that they’re not formally members of the government (but can be relied upon to produce a finding entirely in line with the government’s ideology), regardless of whether that requires the same kind of intellectual clusterfuck to “produce” or not.

Ah... I see. Thank you.

Good point GSW. We need some kind of hegemonic superstructure taking care of all the evil, white, privileged and heterosexual male gossip hags....

;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus

We have one. It's called 'capitalism'.

You don't say BBD. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Looks like you've had high noise to signal problems with your internet connection in Australia just now: see #36- 42, 44

By turboblocke (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Tales from the climate scare crypt:

Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 5th July, 2005

“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant….”

Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 7th May, 2009

"Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried."

:-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

@BBD #45

Ah BBD, about to launch into one of your Capilism Bad, Communism Good rants - softened down to a "benevolent bureacracy" beacuse there may be real people watching. How does it go again, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Climate Policy?

@Olaus,

Phil Jones' 15yrs before the portentologists get worried was kind of a landmark statment. For those of you without a formal education, ecology doesn't count, and jeff (Zoology), 18yrs is longer than 15yrs. I won't "do the sums" for you and as I assume you don't have that many fingers and likely to struggle, you'll just have to take our word for it as usual.
;)

Yep, turboblocke, we tend to get that here when the stupidity precipitates because we're still on the unreliable copper knowledge transmission lines, mostly due to reactionary conversatives staunchly defending certain strongly vested interests who don't want the upgraded precipitation-proof fibre lines.

And it never rains but it pours, usually in mutually back-slapping pairs right?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes Lotharsson, I did say that rice likes warm weather. That's because rice likes warm weather. It's not a mystery.
It also likes warm water. That's not a mystery either.
Much research continues to be directed towards developing cold tolerant varieties. Also not a mystery.
'User pays' is a concept that is used extensively in NRM. It's not
dissimilar to 'taxing externalities'.
Misfiring means that it's aim is not good.
The real 'user' is the end consumer, not the producers of such

things as the roof over your head, the food on your table (and
the table), the power supplied to your home or your workplace 24/7, your PC , your methods of transport etc.
If there were no consumers willing to pay for such items, they
would not be produced. That's not a complicated mystery either.

Sure, 18 years is longer than 15 years.

And a warming trend is more upward than 'no upward trend' (even if we bias it down by ignoring any warming that's not at the surface, and ignore all research that took place since Phil Jones made his statement).

But simple comparisons like that are way beyond Olaus' intellectual capability, and apparently GSW sharpness is such that he doesn't realise that fact despite having been fooled time and time again.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

...I take it you won’t be bothering with any of that careful clarification or restatement business either?

Called it.

The real ‘user’ is the end consumer, not the producers of such

Ok, but you yourself admitted that the costs of the externalities incurred during product creation are passed on by the producer to the real 'user', the one who consumes the product. I don't understand how you think it is misfiring when you are also saying that it is hitting the target - the user of the product that generated negative externalities during its creation is paying the captured cost of those externalities.

Since the point of capturing negative externalities - and presumably "user pays" - is that the user pays, and hence there is an economic motivation on the part of the user and on the part of product suppliers, for producing products that avoid the externalities and their associated costs. Such products will be cheaper than those that must pay for the externalities, and hence users will (by and large) prefer them because they will pay less. In other words, the costs produce the very motivations they are intended to produce - and in both the producers and the consumers.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Cheaper?
Cheaper than what?
In practice, the only definite beneficiary of your theory is a burgeoning democracy.
It certainly isn't the 'little guy'. In this particular case 'the little guy' would conceivably be the small business operators and producers a simple relevant example being the family farmers who grow rice?

GSW

Ah BBD, about to launch into one of your Capilism Bad, Communism Good rants – softened down to a “benevolent bureacracy” beacuse there may be real people watching. How does it go again, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Climate Policy?

Real people tend to resent being exploited by unregulated capitalist enterprise. That doesn't make them communists :-)

And then a fucking great Godwin? Come on, this is boring.

#36...typically, the graph accompanying the article provides no support for the claims and predictions of the cynical poker-faced clowns quoted within. The mistakenly introduced Don Easterbrook being the biggest clown on show.

Easterbrook claims to have predicted in 1999 what we 'see' now, claiming starting that year we would see crop failures and food shortages. Once again, the UAH plot shows that he is utterly wrong. In the standout field of cheap-ass disingenuity that passes for 'skepticism', has there been anyone more thoroughly dishonest than Easterbrook?

Stupid is still going on about his fixation with cold tolerant rice since he believes we are heading for a cooling spell rather than warming.

The main reason researchers are looking to improve cold tolerance in rice is the exact opposite of stupid's mutterings. Rice is a tropical plant i.e. warm, however, farmers want to grow it in temperate climates (cooler) than which it is happy to grow in. Thus the effort to find cold tolerant stains is to widen the geographical areas (cooler) where it can be grown and to allow it to grow at higher altitudes (cooler) than it is being grown in now.

So much for stupid's claim to be an agricultural researcher and expert, DK strikes again.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

oops "cold tolerant strains" not "cold tolerant stains".

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Cheaper than what?

Read the words again:

Such products will be cheaper than those that must pay for the externalities...

This is not hard to understand.

It is very well established that businesses aggressively seek to reduce their costs, so when a formerly uncaptured negative externality is captured at least some of the businesses competing in that sector will change how they do business if they can see a way to do it cheaper. And if and when they succeed, consumers will on average shift their purchasing preferences as well. Why, it's the magic of the invisible hand of the free market at work right in front of your eyes!

In practice, the only definite beneficiary of your theory is a burgeoning democracy.

I presume you had a little Freudian slip when you said "democracy" instead of "bureaucracy"? ;-)

The next thing is that in practice, we have plenty of evidence to the contrary, so you're arguing against mainstream economics. Can we add that to the ever growing list of topics on which you know better than the experts?

To be fair it is true that capturing negative externalities or "user pays" doesn't always work as well as we might like - perhaps because businesses can't find viable alternatives. However, you offer no method that addresses this issue, and so far offer no method that is superior for resource management. And the alternatives I can imagine are even more offensive to what seems to be your ideology and preferences - if the market won't change consumption, the only real alternatives seem to require stronger regulation and stronger "centrally planned" projects that aim to develop solutions that the market cannot deliver.

So are you in fact arguing for Bigger Government(TM) and Bigger Bureacracy(TM), or haven't you thought it through far enough yet?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes I did mean bureaucracy Lotharsson. My apologies . I need to pay more attention to this device's auto correct functions. I also did not reread before or after submitting the comment. There was nothing Freudian about it. I was just simply in a hurry. I still am very busy so I apologise if this quick comment has any typos or inappropriate auto corrects.
I note you missed the point about the 'little guy'.
It's the 'big guys' who can absorb and pass on those costs.
Small businesses and small producers (the little guys) get
screwed under such regimes.
They view multinationals and monopolistic behaviour with about
the same amount of affection as burgeoning impractical NRM bureaucracies.
What plenty of evidence?
There is very little resemblance to a 'free market' when
bureaucrats and technocrats hold the monopoly.
What alternatives ?
And no. I do not argue for your TMs. I'm tempted to stoop to your level and read something entirely different into your concluding questions.
Luckily I don't have the time, because it would be a total waste of time.

It’s the ‘big guys’ who can absorb and pass on those costs.

This is very badly confused on a very basic concept, and the assertion coupled to the confusion is false.

Absorbing costs is the opposite of passing on costs. Absorbing costs is a (usually) conscious decision to not pass on the costs and reduce your profit margin instead. Passing on costs is a conscious decision to add the increase in costs to your prices, i.e. not to absorb them.

And it's not the size of the business that controls their ability to absorb extra costs, it's the profit margins. Some small businesses have very high profit margins; some large businesses have very small ones.

Similarly, the ability to pass on costs has precisely nothing to do with the size of the business - if anything, it's defined by the market segment (consumers' ability and willingness to pay), independent of the producers.

So, I think we can add basic business concepts to that list of subjects...

There is very little resemblance to a ‘free market’ when bureaucrats and technocrats hold the monopoly.

You are focusing on the market for the resource and ignoring the market for the products that may or may not require the resource, and apparently suggesting that the latter will not affect the former if prices change in the former. You may even be arguing that the latter market does not demonstrate the free market at work because a subset of it wants to acquire a resource from what may be a single provider. If so, neither of those positions make sense. And neither of them appears to take any consideration of the goals behind a resource management or negative externality capture scheme, which is foolish, and rather like our current government which simply argues that certain changes in conditions for certain players (e.g. some businesses or individuals) are just not on by (in effect) simply pretending that other legitimate reasons for those changes do not exist.

There are more problems in the rest of your comment, coupled with a massively hypocritical request for evidence, but my time runs short. Maybe someone else can point them out to you.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 02 Oct 2014 #permalink

Oily Prat links to something with this in its URL:

1-no-global-warming-past-18-years

Roll on another year and it will look like this:

'1-no-global-warming-past-19-years'

and the year after:

'1-no-global-warming-past-20-years'

I wonder why.

It looks like this page has been subjected to Entry Of The Gladiatorsa March of the clowns.

Turbo at #62

Whilst battling in other lands (plenty of numpties and liars for hire) I have been using this quick adaptation of one over a slightly longer period that I created awhile back, to match that deceptive Monckton Foundation example:

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998.92/to:2013.92/every/plot/rss…

where even RSS shows a slight increase, as one would expect.

I bet that that goes down a treat, Lionel.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 02 Oct 2014 #permalink

@Olaus,

Following on from the fun yesterday, a link to a post over on the ClimateLessons blog, replete with josh cartoon.

"Children of the Global Warming Scare: coming of age with no global warming over their lifetimes"

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/children-of-global-warming…

Fair article all round, but a couple of things caught my eye,

"'The Communist Party USA’s environmental program “presents a viable plan to carry out on the long march to socialism.”' - Havel Wolf, Seattle Audubon Society"

Obviously that's going to appeal to the Deltards. And, ending on a more optimistic note,

" 'Stupid' is too good a word for such people[the alarmists]. Children of the Warming Scare will have been harmed by them. Perhaps as adults, they will be able to think more for themselves more, and begin to develop a calmer, more rational, and more optimistic view of their future."

which is very positive - Science is about evidence! NOT the opinions of our know-nothing hippy/communist friends, no matter how 'earnest' they may be in their beliefs (It doesn't mean they're not idiots as we've had demonstrated umpteen times here)

Enjoy Deltards!
;)

I see the dullards are falling for it again, this no warming stupid.

See, #62 & #64 you twerps.

Apologies Lionel, I hadn't meant to exclude you in

"the opinions of our know-nothing hippy/communist [aka idiot] friends"

the fact you are additionally "urine joint soaked" was neither here nor there. You're definitely on the know-nothing list in my view, irrespective of your other "issues" if you'tre feeling repressed.
;)

Lotharsson.
I have no wish to offend you but your last comment is demonstrating a remarkable ignorance about small businesses and producers.
For a simple example, most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.
The policies and theories you are advocating drive out family operations and do not drive efficiencies.
They instead focus on creating a bureaucratic or academic concept of a 'market' for 'negative externalities' which can only be successfully operated by taxing and increasing impractical rules and regulations.
The result is that we end up with depts that produce mountains of quite useless regulatory and compliance information and
behave like they're the 'tree police'.
The only businesses and producers who can successfully absorb all these extra compliance requirements and then pass on the costs to the consumers are the 'big guys'.
As most of you continually point out, the 'big guys' do not have a social conscious and neither are they considerate of the environment.
Very unfortunately, bureaucracies find it much easier to tick their boxes working with the 'big guys'.
As an entity, bureaucracies continuously demonstrate an innate dislike and ignorance of 'the little guy'.

Ian Forrester @#57.
That comment is one of the funniest comments (in an ironic sense) I have read in quite some time.
Of course cold tolerant varieties of rice can be grown further afield. Like duh!
Of course rice is a tropical plant and likes warm. Like duh!
Not only am I involved in agricultural research, one of the main
areas of focus is rice growing.
I work with rice farmers all the time.
Without doubt, a cold snap at flowering, below 12 deg is far
more damaging to yields than an incremental rise of average
night time temperatures over decades.
This simple fact has nothing at all to do with your
unsubstantiated claim that I must therefore believe that the
globe is cooling.
That is highly and amusingly ironic.

October now.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 02 Oct 2014 #permalink

...but your last comment is demonstrating a remarkable ignorance about small businesses and producers.

...says the guy whose remarkable ignorance is so deep that he thinks that passing on increased costs and absorbing increased costs are the same thing.

It is to laugh, albeit with a tinge of sadness.

The policies and theories you are advocating drive out family operations and do not drive efficiencies.

How very odd.

I have not advocated any specific policies, because you couched your original comment in vague and rather general terms and have not deigned to provide specifics when asked. Furthermore, a theory cannot "drive out a family operation" because it is a theory. Theories can be applied in many different ways (e.g. to produce specific policies) and can be applied (e.g.) to many different externalities, so one might argue that certain specific applications of a theory have an impact (and I presume that's what you are trying to say).

In that case, fortunately for you, no-one can ever rebut your claim because you haven't made one that can be tested! Perhaps if you bothered to explain what you meant I would understand better what you are objecting to, but as it stands all I hear is a generalised whine. Would you care to be more specific about policies you object to? Maybe even give an example? Or does an argument couched in glittering untestable generalities better serve your purpose?

Your goalpost shift to "efficiencies" is rather interesting, because that has not been mentioned before and appears to be a red herring. Capturing negative externalities is not about improving efficiency. It is about remedying market failures that allow a producer to force detrimental consequences onto others for their own private profit. No wonder you think regulatory and compliance information is "useless" if you haven't even grasped the fundamental reason for it!

And once one grasps the reason for it, one can see that (in general, because you haven't bothered to be specific yet), allowing the negative externalities to persist does not benefit the little guys in their competition with the big guys. If anything it harms them, because as you appear to acknowledge:

...the ‘big guys’ do not have a social conscious and neither are they considerate of the environment.

And that means they are quite happy to drive the negative externalities up and up if it will increase their profits a little bit, whereas many smaller producers are not happy to do that, and as a consequence suffer a competitive disadvantage.

If I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying "screw it, let anybody create as many negative externalities as they want, because I don't want small businesses to have to comply with any kind of negative externality capture regulations as I think that will be better for them than letting the negative externalities flow unchecked and I don't care who or what is impacted by those externalities as long as it's not 'small businesses'". Is that pretty much it?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 02 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stupid still hasn't got a clue as to why researchers are looking for cold tolerant strains of rice. I very much doubt that he has got anything to do with rice research. In fact the closest he has ever got to agriculture is shoveling bull sh!t.

If he was a serious researcher he would not be anonymous and spreading lies and rubbish.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 02 Oct 2014 #permalink

Ian, he's also indulging in what appears to be a category error or two and that is indicative of very woolly thinking:

Without doubt, a cold snap at flowering, below 12 deg is far more damaging to yields than an incremental rise of average night time temperatures over decades.

He's comparing a single instance of a threshold crossing event with an incremental rise in climatic averages that may affect many instances; he's also comparing a well specified threshold with a handwaving "incremental rise" and (I suspect) implicitly referencing some climate(s) where rice is grown but not others.

And still he has "no doubt" that the comparison is valid. It looks to me like a case of not even being wrong.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 03 Oct 2014 #permalink

I see gormless is back with his as-usual kindergarten level views on politics and environmental issues. Like his equally brainless buddies Jonas and Olaus, his only recourse is to smear people who believe that climate change and other environmental threats are real and serious as 'commies' and 'watermelons'. This bullshit comes straight from the depths of their stupidity. Forget the overwhelming scientific evidence and views of the rank-and-file of the scientific community.

The he says this to Lionel: "You’re definitely on the know-nothing list in my view".

IN HIS VIEW. Therein lies the rub. Gormless, your views are utterly worthless. You are a simpleton. Get lost.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 Oct 2014 #permalink

#70 grows rice in arid regions like Cali, so doesn't mention water.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 03 Oct 2014 #permalink

# 70 grows ice in areas where it should not too. ;-)

And the emperor penguins thrives, but not the left handed one, suffering from self idolatry wanking. "Mirror, mirror on the wall..."

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 03 Oct 2014 #permalink

Wow.
It was actually you who claimed rice would like it best in death valley.
I simply pointed out that cold snaps at flowering

NO YOU DID NOT.

You claimed that rice liked it warmer, AND THAT WAS ALL.

And, since Death Valley is very warm, it NECESSARILY means that your statement means it would like to grow there.

That you are now saying this is absolutely not the case (you ARE, aren't you? You've not explicitly said otherwise, but the only point of your tripe above would be if you disclaimed that consequentiality), then you must now admit that your claims AS YOU YOURSELF NOW ADMIT were lies by omission and therefore entirely and utterly ridiculous to claim.

Or, in other words, what Lotharson said in #31...

Yes Lotharsson, I did say that rice likes warm weather. That’s because rice likes warm weather. It’s not a mystery.

So are you saying, now, that Death Valley is *cold*, then????

That’s because rice likes warm weather. It’s not a mystery.

A number of people have pointed out in a number of ways that the important point in the context of Stu 2's "argument" is that just as rice doesn't like it too cold it also doesn't like it too hot, hence stating "rice likes warm weather" is at best negligent and at worst a deliberate distortion. And since rice doesn't like it too hot and Marohasy's "a few degrees warming" massively increases the prevalence of conditions too hot for rice (and reduces the prevalence of conditions too cold for it), Stu 2's argument is invalid.

The real mystery here is that someone self-asserting to be "involved in" agricultural research refuses to admit this fairly plain fact and simple reasoning that follows - unless perhaps that involvement is peripheral to the intellectual activity of research.

While I'm at it, Stu 2's insistence that a warming climate simply cannot pose much problem for rice yields because a 12C event is just, like, so bad, like, so what could possibly, like, be worse than that, like, came in response to me pointing out that Stu 2's favourite disinformer, Marohasy, made a deeply ignorant comment implying that "a few degrees warming" isn't that big a deal for agriculture because it's far more important to "get rainfall cycles right". Ecologists can point out at great length why her breezy dismissal is not only unfounded but positively dangerous, and climate scientists can point out at great length why a few degrees warming will strongly impact rainfall cycles and reduce their predictability in many places around the globe so even the dichotomy he is implicitly defending is a false one.

But that may not be the most interesting point. Around the same time frame Stu 2 claimed that "user pays" or capturing negative externalities (which includes greenhouse gas emissions) basically doesn't work, is kind of undemocratic or maybe just too bureacratic for his aesthetic, and favours big business over "the small guy", all implying that he doesn't want said externalities captured. This is a rather odd juxtaposition, given that climate scientists point out that "a few degrees warming" is going to completely screw an awful lot of subsistence farmers who are - in no uncertain terms - the "small guy" on a global scale, and that it is the comparatively rich nations (which have the kind of "small guy" that Stu 2 appears to be focusing on) that are best placed to ride out the resulting chaos and volatility.

It's almost like Stu 2 is casting about for vaguely plausible reasons - any reasons - to reject capturing negative externalities and doesn't realise that his own argument is an argument for capturing them.

Sunspot would be proud - 1st class clown trolling, that.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 03 Oct 2014 #permalink

Lotharsson & Wow.
You are tying yourselves up in verbal knots.
It's amusing to read but that's about all.
I have often pointed out that I am not interested in a petty I said, you said, I think you think because of what I think you meant by what you said then I therefore say etc conversation.
Your MO that sees you defaulting to this behaviour says far more about you than your ridiculous speculations and conclusions about me.
But it is sometimes amusing to read.

You are tying yourselves up in verbal knots.

As I say, it's always projection.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 03 Oct 2014 #permalink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
" Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a person who is rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude."

" Freud would later come to believe that projection did not take place arbitrarily, but rather seized on and exaggerated an element that already existed on a small scale in the other person.[12] (The related defence of projective identification differs from projection in that there the other person is expected to become identified with the impulse or desire projected outside,[13] so that the self maintains a connection with what is projected, in contrast to the total repudiation of projection proper.)[14]
:-)

For a simple example, most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.

As with most of Stu2 unsourced assertions this is pure bullshit. While the majority of farmers are in small family operations, the majority of produce - and therefore "The food that appears on your table" is produced by the largest 5% of farms - ie the corporate operations. More specifically, the top 6% of farms, averaging $3.3 million worth of production per year. Yep, Stu2's "concern" about farmers is all about looking out for the "little guy".

Home viewers can replicate the sums using this data from ABS: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features10Dec… , although I would doubt Stu2 could.

You are tying yourselves up in verbal knots.

Are you saying that rice doesn't depend on rainfall as per Lotharssons "verbal knots"? Or that rainfall doesn't vary strongly with temperature change?

BTW, it is worth noting that Marohasy's derisory "few degrees of warming" represents a 5 standard deviation change in tropical Africa - what was a 1-in-10000 year anomaly in 1900 will be a normal year in 2100 at the rate we are going. Do African countries have crop-failures more often than 1 year in 10,000? I don't know, but I do know that as long as the temps don't drop below 12 C, she's apples (or cassava or sorghum or something).

Good old Stu2, always looking out for the "little guy". What a mensch.

Oops lost a bit in editing - for:

More specifically, the top 6% of farms, averaging $3.3 million worth of production per year. Yep, Stu2′s “concern” about farmers is all about looking out for the “little guy”.

read

More specifically, 55% of Australia's agricultural output comes from the top 6% of farms, averaging $3.3 million worth of production per year. Yep, Stu2′s “concern” about farmers is all about looking out for the “little guy”.

Frank D.
May I suggest, with respect, that you recheck your assertions @ # 85 & # 86.
Start with your own link and then research the information across the major commodity groups.
If you live in Australia, think about what food you put on your table - proteins, dairy, cereal, fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, oils, additives, spices, herbs, dried goods etc etc etc.
Apart from the fact that we are extraordinarily lucky to live in Australia and have such an amazing choice (local and imported), check what type of farming operations produce the majority of those in Australia.
Once again with respect, I would also suggest you avoid the common problem that occurs when lifting singular figures from complex data sets.
As per your specific questions about rice - and because rice has been raised as an example here:
If you read back over the comments, you may notice that I have indeed mentioned water.
Of course rice depends on all climate variables.
As well as being a crop that thrives in warmer climes, rice is essentially a water weed. It's calorific return per litre is very high and is one of the reasons that it has become a major staple for the world's population.
Did you know that it takes more water to produce the kilo of Australian beef or lamb that eventually lands on your table than it does to produce the kilo of Australian rice and/or all of the other Australian grown cereals (wheat, corn, barley, sorghum, triticale, oats, canola etc)?
You could then could perhaps consider the number of people a kilo of rice can feed, compared to a kilo of beef or lamb? Then consider the comparative storage capabilities and the comparative logistics involved in landing those food products on your table.
There are approx. 2,000 Australian farmers involved in the Australian rice industry, the vast majority of those being family farming operations. When in full production, the Australian rice industry produces over 1million tons of rice and the entire Australian rice industry generates income in the $billions
It is a vertically integrated 'paddock to plate' enterprise.
Rice is only one example but it is the commodity that has been raised here.
If you investigate most of the other Australian grown foodstuffs that land on your table in Australia you will discover that even though the logistic and production models may be very different to rice, the majority of the actual growers of all those different commodities are family farming operations. Some are very small in terms of tonnage and hectares (such as small specialty fruit and vegetable growers) and others (such as beef cattle properties in the northern parts of Australia) are quite large. If you ask the smaller operators (ie the little guys), what the metaphorical straw that breaks their back is - can you hazard a guess what the most common answer is?
But, to stay relevant to your specific questions, of course everything agricultural on this planet has a water requirement. I find it quite strange that you are trying to imply that I would think otherwise, or that I would think that weather systems and therefore precipitation are not affected by temperature (ocean, atmospheric etc).
If we are aiming for an ideal average climate specifically for food production, an average warmer & wetter global climate would provide net benefits over an average cooler & drier global climate.

When faced with hard data, Stu2 responds with facile, platitudinous handwaving and goalpost shifting. Could have knocked me down with a feather.

check what type of farming operations produce the majority of those in Australia.

I did - 55% of Australias agricultural production comes from 6% of businesses averaging $3.3 million production per year. Not family businesses.

Now, if Stu2 wants to claim that the output of the majority of big agricultural concerns don't end up on someones table, thats up to him to show, not me. Stu2 always expects other people to find the facts that support his argument, but I don't do other people's homework.

Alternatively, if Stu2 wants to talk about the majority of farms being family run, he will have to explain how that ties in with :

For a simple example, most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.

I'll bet a shiny penny that he will do neither, nor admit he was wrong (because he appears incapable of that), but just treat us all to more galloping and wibbling. Any takers?

Meanwhile, I note Stu2 still hasn't got back to us on those unanswered questions he thinks BOM needs to address. Is this like Willard Anthony's "great many questions" that he so signally failed to put to Michael Mann when he had the chance at Bristol recently? It's hard to answer questions people refuse to actually ask...

Frank D.
I did try to ask you to recheck your isolated lifted statistic.
For a start, what makes you conclude that a $3.3million production figure excludes an Australian family farming operation?
That is not a profit figure Frank, it's the value of the end produce.
Also check context of that particular statistic in terms of the
original comment about the food on a table.
If it's any help to you, I work with many mixed family farming
businesses across a wide range of commodities that would be at or near that $3.3mil end product figure.
If you don't understand the way these businesses operate, it's easy to get bamboozled by some of the ABS and ABARES data and assume what you have apparently assumed.

If we are aiming for an ideal average climate specifically for food production, an average warmer & wetter global climate would provide net benefits over an average cooler & drier global climate.

This is ecologically and evolutionarily ignorant unless you add an impossible caveat: "all other things being equal" (or limit yourself to quite small changes in those variables).

But they're not equal.

In other words you can't get there from here. That specific kind of ignorance leading to stupid claims was the point of my citing Marohasy's ignorant comment dismissing several degrees of warming when compared to better prediction of precipitation patterns.

When you warm the planet you change all the relevant variables. That includes the composition of the ecosystem and the pests - animal, insect, microbial, fungal etc. - that may either boost or hinder agricultural productivity (and some of the ones that hinder tend to aggressively benefit from increased temperature, and some might do the same from increased precipitation). If you can't imagine how this might play out, go mention "pine beetle" and "economic impact" to foresters in Northern America and see what they say. Then note that the US has seen only about one degree of warming since 1895...

...and if you warm the climate by several degrees you take the climate and the ecosystem waaaaaaay out of the envelope inside which a whole bunch of our modern agricultural staples evolved. That alone should make your reconsider trying to simplistically predict that such a change would provide a net agricultural gain.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 04 Oct 2014 #permalink

Shorter Stu2: wibble.

If Stu2 wants to prove his contention that the majority of table food in Australia is produced by family farming operations, he has only to adduce some reliable data to establish his case.

But Stu2 doesn't do data, only flatulent assertions, which, on every topic he has rambled on about, have been found wanting. So much easier to ask me to do his homework for him.

Stu 2 calls for careful interpretation of evidence:

If you don’t understand the way these businesses operate, it’s easy to get bamboozled by some of the ABS and ABARES data and assume what you have apparently assumed.

...but fails to provide anything but anecdotal evidence and handwaving for his own assertions, and has an ever-growing list of his own bamboozlements waiting for him to acknowledge.

Where can I get a replacement military grade irony meter?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 05 Oct 2014 #permalink

Maybe third time lucky?
Let's try it this way Frank D.
1) Do you know the history behind the research data in the link you posted?
A) It was commissioned by the former federal govt to examine the opportunities for growth and investment in Australian Agriculture, particularly for what is now known as the coming "Asian Century" and for the export opportunities that will present for Australian Agriculture. It also examined the Australian domestic market for Australian agriculture. I have the published "Green Paper" in hard copy as I attended some of the preliminary consultation but it would probably still be online. This work is now progressing to the eventual publication of the "Agricultural white Paper".
2) Do you know the difference between a) the export market for Australian agriculture and b) the domestic market for Australian agriculture?
A) If it's grown for a) it won't be landing on your domestic table.
3) I also note that you have failed to explain how you concluded that the $3.3million production figure excludes family farming operations?
Here:
" 55% of Australias agricultural production comes from 6% of businesses averaging $3.3 million production per year- with your added caveat - Not family businesses."

Your lifted statistic is out of context and relates to the export market and its contribution to Australia's GDP. It is also expressed in dollar terms and does not relate to the food that ends up on your domestic table.
I did suggest you re check your assertion, starting at the link you provided which states such things as:
" There were, however, a small number (7,700 or 6%) of large farms with estimated agricultural operations in excess of $1 million. (Endnote 3) This reflects the diverse nature of farming in Australia ranging from small, often family-owned businesses, to very large (family and corporate) businesses. In all, the value of agricultural production across both large and small farms in Australia in 2010-11 was $46 billion, (Endnote 4) with the value added by the agriculture industry accounting for 2.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). (Endnote 5) "

" Farming has been a major contributor to the Australian economy since the earliest days of European settlement. In the first half of the 20th century, agriculture accounted for around a quarter of the nation’s output and up to 80% of Australia’s exports. (Endnote 2) Such was the importance of agriculture, particularly wool production, to Australia’s prosperity that the country was said to “ride on the sheep’s back”.

In recent decades, the growth of other industries, including a thriving services sector, has seen a relative decline in Australia’s reliance on agriculture. While this is consistent with trends in other developed countries, Australia’s agricultural output as a proportion of the economy is among the highest in the OECD. (Endnote 2) "
" Despite agricultural production being increasingly concentrated in large farms in recent decades, (Endnote 2) the majority of Australia’s farms are comparatively small. In 2010-11, just over half (55%) had an estimated value of agricultural operations of less than $100,000.

" A sharp increase in global food prices in recent years has focused attention on the adequacy and affordability of global food supplies. With the challenge likely to become more pressing over time, Australia’s role as a net food exporter will be critical. In 2009, Australian farms produced 93% of the total volume of food consumed in Australia. After catering for the needs of the Australian population, 60% of Australia’s farm produce was exported, helping feed some 40 million people outside Australia each day. (Endnote 6)

Stu 2 has one and a half or maybe even two points:

1) The page that FrankD linked to does not report the domestic output by size of farm as measured by value of agricultural operations (this point more implied than stated), so it can't be used to determine that distribution.

2) Large farming businesses can also be family businesses.

but they are somewhat undermined by three other points:

A) Stu 2 claims to FrankD:

Your lifted statistic is out of context and relates to the export market and its contribution to Australia’s GDP.

Well, no, the page FrankD linked to is about much more than just the export market so the inference is incorrect. Furthermore, Frank implied he calculated his statistics rather than "lifted it" so that's incorrect too. But to be fair point (1) does apply here.

B) Stu 2 has blatantly shifted the goalposts from here:

In this particular case ‘the little guy’ would conceivably be the small business operators and producers a simple relevant example being the family farmers who grow rice?

and here:

...your last comment is demonstrating a remarkable ignorance about small businesses and producers. For a simple example, most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.

where he conflated "small businesses and producers" with "family farming operations" thereby implying that the two are essentially synonymous, to focusing on whether large farm businesses can be family operated businesses thereby undermining his own conflation. (Sunspot would be proud!)

And on that point, well sure, large businesses can be family operated. But if they are large family-operated businesses, then by definition they're large businesses. That means they're not the "little guy". Specifically, they're not the little guy Stu 2 implied produces most of the domestically consumed agricultural produce, and they're not the little guy who Stu 2 reckons is so put upon by some policies or regulations or something (that Stu 2 refuses to specify, of course!)

Keep your eye on the goalposts, folks! This is one of the easiest ways to tilt the playing field!

C) Stu 2, as is his wont, admonishes others:

I would also suggest you avoid the common problem that occurs when lifting singular figures from complex data sets.

Ironically, he has provided zero data to back up his own claims so he's still well behind FrankD on that score. Perhaps he should provide some evidence for his own claims before he criticises other people's attempts to provide evidence about his own claims for him, especially since he's been caught making bullshit claims so many times before?

Maybe Stu 2's claim here about domestic production being primarily due to family operated businesses is correct! But as Stu 2 says it's a complex data set (despite Stu 2 earlier alleging that his claim about the data was "a simple example"), so no evidence we've seen so far rules out the possibility that it's primarily due to large family-operated businesses. Surely since Stu 2 is so confident about his claim he has data to back it up, right? ;-)

Sadly, that all means that Frank's characterisation of Stu 2's responses as "galloping and wibbling" is still accurate. Only Stu 2 can fix that.

It's not clear that's true based on what you've cited so far. The article discusses "Australia's agricultural production" without qualification when it first mentions agricultural contribution to GDP. This happens before it discusses agricultural exports. From a quick back of the envelope calculation I suspect Frank inferred his numbers from the histogram at the top and the reported size of production.

One clue is these two quotes from the article:

...In all, the value of agricultural production across both large and small farms in Australia in 2010-11 was $46 billion, (Endnote 4) with the value added by the agriculture industry accounting for 2.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

...

In the three decades to 2010-11, the value of Australian farm exports rose from $8.2 to $32.5 billion

The $46B total value is related to GDP, so we can infer that the $32.5B export value is a smaller proportion of GDP and $13.5B is produced for domestic consumption.

Are you trying to say that the figures in the article do not separately break out the size of farms that produce the $13.5B of production domestic consumption? If so, you have a point - but you still haven't produced any data to back your claim that this production is primarily produced by small or family-owned farms (so I need another irony meter, given that you told Frank to check his assertion).

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 05 Oct 2014 #permalink

Sorry folks, edit fail!

My comment above was meant to stop at "Only Stu 2 can fix that." The rest is part of earlier thoughts from before I had checked my thoughts against a re-read of the comments and articles.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 05 Oct 2014 #permalink

Shorter Stu2: wibble wibble.

If Stu2 spent as much effort doing his homework as find reasons why I should do it for him, we'd be done by now.

One stipulation - its possible that a few of the top end businesses are technically family-run. By the same token, Hancock Prospecting is just a little family-run mining giant too, so I suppose Gina Rinehart would fit Stu2's definition of "the little guy". Good old Stu2, always looking out for the little guy.

Lotharsson re your point 1 and A, and your later "From a quick back of the envelope calculation I suspect Frank inferred his numbers from the histogram at the top and the reported size of production." - Eggs Zachary.

My statement of 55% of produce coming from 6% of million-dollar-per-year farms, which average $3.3 million in output per year is indeed a figure calculated from the data I linked to.

I did not describe the methodology in detail so as not to prejudice the necessary, trivial and obvious assumptions required by others trying to use the same data for the same calculation (ie data released, but not the "code"). But any mug with a calculator could backwards engineer the precise method used.

However Stu2 hasn't questioned the figure, so I presume he either understands the method and agrees with the number, or hasn't understood it and elected spam the thread with text from the site I linked to.

This has just been another chapter in the shitstorm of derp that is Stu2's "contribution" to the discussion. Sometimes he probably even makes the odd valid point, but its so laboured, so layered with encrusted bullshit, made in such bad faith and backed by such facile "reasoning", that it is impossible to tell when he does so. Stu2 has not put up a single post here where I've been able to say "yep, nailed it."

Even if I do agree with some point he makes (and that is not so rare), its so deformed, made so lamely and unfashionable that a dog would bark at it as it halts by.

As with every other attempt to engage with one of his points, I end up feeling the will to live draining away. Some time ago I asked Lotharsson why he engaged with time-waster. Now I'm going to wander off to ask myself the same...ciao

Lotharsson & Frank.
The comment was and the point remains that most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.
The link Frank supplied and the rest of the research supplied for the Green Paper both show that.
Note also that the ABS link says 6% in excess of $1 million rather than Frank's repeated assertion that the figure is $3.3 million.

Stu. IIUC the 3.3 million is the average output of those farms with output greater than 1 million.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 05 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes turbobloke.
However, in relation to the comment about the 'food on your table', it is an out of context, lifted statistic.
Frank D also used it to claim that most of the food on our tables comes from " not family businesses".
Even the example I provided earlier about the Australian rice industry, the larger family operations produce in excess of $1million but most of Australia's rice is exported. The rice that stays in the domestic market and lands on the domestic table is nonetheless likely produced by a family farming operation.
Other farming produce such as fruit & vegetables has a different
configuration for domestic vs export.
Some data for people here:
It takes 4,500 litres of water to land 1kilo of beef on your domestic table.
It takes 1,200 litres for chicken, 200 litres for wheat and 150 litres for rice.

The link Frank supplied and the rest of the research supplied for the Green Paper both show that.

Unless I missed something fairly basic the link does not show that, and I already pointed that out to you. It is even less convincing the second time around when you repeat a rebutted claim without backing it up.

The Green Paper? It might indeed show that, but no-one here has seen it except you so it doesn't show that to anyone but you. And since you routinely get caught out making false claims you'll forgive us if we don't take your word for it.

A citation the rest of us can see would help your case. You'll find that if you do that, and it supports your case, most people here will accept your argument.

Note also that the ABS link says 6% in excess of $1 million rather than Frank’s repeated assertion that the figure is $3.3 million.

Yes, we know.

But from the data given on that page you should be able to figure out the approximate average for large farms, even if not explicitly stated there. Frank already indicated that he did that kind of thing.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 05 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu2, your arguments re: rice miss the point entirely. Many species thrive more under warm than cool conditions; this depends to a large extent on their phylogeny and their evolutionary history. The point that clearly cannot get through your head is that species are adapted to climatic windows; these windows cover a range of temperatures and other abiotic conditions in which a species lives.

The rate of warming threatens to create conditions that fall outside of a species abiotic window. In other words, rice will not thrive if ambient temperatures rise rapidly and go beyond what it is adapted to. This will apply to a huge number of species adapted to certain conditions in their ranges across the biosphere across different biomes. Moreover, warming is attendant with other changes such as increases or decreases in precipitation regimes. Thus, inundations or droughts will certainly have deleterious effects on plants and animals that are not adapted to them.

Plant and animal biologists are all aware of this; that is why few of us (unless we are on the corporate payroll) make flippant remarks about the benefits of warming, given the rates projected that by far exceed anything the planet has experienced in hundreds of thousands of years at least.

Thus, to argue that species which exist and thrive under warm conditions will continue to do so in even warmer conditions - and especially give the rates of change projected - is speaking utter nonsense. Warming along with increases in C02 are having already profound changes on the ecophysiology of many plants in ways that threaten to unravel food webs. Moreover, your views on rice ignore other members of the food chain with which the plant interacts (both mutualists and antagonists). These must be factored in if we are to elucidate the effects of rapid warming on rice and other crops.

In response to Olaus, all I can say is keep envying me, dopey. My qualifications are based on the views of my peers in response to my research output. I just passed 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 4000 citations in my career. The real self-idolatry examples are the dorks you worship: Watts, McIntyre, Marohasy and the other psuedos whose egos are bloated by the likes of people like you. Oh, and that includes your buddy, Jonas, who hasn't got one shred of scientific expertise.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Also Lotharsson.
Copy/ pasted straight across from the link that Frank D supplied - what do you think this shows?
” A sharp increase in global food prices in recent years has focused attention on the adequacy and affordability of global food supplies. With the challenge likely to become more pressing over time, Australia’s role as a net food exporter will be critical. In 2009, Australian farms produced 93% of the total volume of food consumed in Australia. After catering for the needs of the Australian population, 60% of Australia’s farm produce was exported, helping feed some 40 million people outside Australia each day. (Endnote 6)

So I guess you may indeed have missed something?

Not only, but very particularly:
" Australian farms produced 93% of the total volume of food consumed in Australia."

Put it all together as well as understanding that up to 60% of agricultural produce is exported and maybe the comment related to the food on your table looks like it might be supported by the data don't you think?
Also.
Frank explicitly used that figure to claim that most of the food on our tables was from "NOT FAMILY FARMING OPERATIONS".

Jeff Harvey @ # 3
I did not raise rice production as a topic here.
It was raised by others accompanied by a lack of perspective and understanding about rice production IMHO.
Of course there will always be winners and losers in a changing & highly variable environment.
That doesn't discount the proposition that the majority of
commercial crops that are produced either directly or indirectly for human consumption would likely attract net benefits in an average warmer, wetter world over a cooler, drier world, including rice.

Stu 2, thanks for the link to the green paper web page.

Given that it's a 284 page PDF, would you please enhance your citation to indicate which pages or sections you're relying upon? This is a common courtesy when providing a citation to a large document.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

So I guess you may indeed have missed something?

No, you did. Do you literally not remember what you claimed a couple of days ago and what has been discussed daily since? Are you completely unable or unwilling to use your browser to check what you said?

Let me refresh your memory. It was your own claim that most of the food consumed domestically is produced by small family-operated Australian producers. Note the bolded part of the claim - that was the key point of that claim!

There is nothing in the quotes you provided from FrankD's web page that either supports or undermines that claim, because those quotes do not talk about the size of the operations that produce most of the domestically consumed food. To support the bolded part of the claim you made it would have to provide some kind of breakdown of production of domestically consumed food by size of producer.

Ironically, this breakdown of domestically consumed production is what was missing from FrankD's analysis when you castigated him for getting it wrong. Even more ironically, I already explained to you why this argument from you is not supported by that web page. He got the point when I explained it, you doubled down on your error. Why?

You are exhibiting a really basic comprehension of "data" issue, but unlike most people here you are almost completely resistant to taking on board any issues that are demonstrated with your argument.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Frank explicitly used that figure to claim that most of the food on our tables was from “NOT FAMILY FARMING OPERATIONS”.

Yes, he did, and I pointed out why his argument was not supported by that web page. He understood the reasoning and accepted that. But you clearly haven't understood the reasoning and are making just as bad an argument.

Furthermore, his argument could still turn out to be correct once all the facts are in, given the bounds the data on that page provides. (This is the difference between demonstrating the evidence disproves an argument and demonstrating that it does not prove the argument. Disproof is not the same as non-proof.)

If 55% of Australian agricultural production is from large operations, and only 40% of Australian agricultural production is consumed domestically, then (in the absence of more specific data) it remains entirely possible that the entire "40%" is taken from the "55%", i.e. ALL locally consumed locally produced food could theoretically be produced by large producers.

Now that's almost certainly not the case, but it doesn't need to be for your claim to be incorrect either. Your claim was "most" local consumption of local produce is "most likely" from small (family operated, but still small) producers. In that case (i.e. without additional clarification) "most" usually means more than half, so let's round half of 40% up to 21% of local production.

Now it's even easier to see that 21% or more of local production might be from large producers, given that those producers produce 55% of local production. It's easy to see that it is quite possible that 21% is from large non-family operated producers. Maybe you meant 3/4 of local consumption when you said "most"? We're only still looking at 30% out of 55% produced by the large producer segment...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Of course there will always be winners and losers in a changing & highly variable environment.
That doesn’t discount the proposition that the majority of
commercial crops that are produced either directly or indirectly for human consumption would likely attract net benefits in an average warmer, wetter world over a cooler, drier world, including rice.

Shorter Stu 2: I didn't understand a word Jeff wrote, which fortunately means I don't have to re-evaluate my existing ignorance-based opinion.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Lotharsson.
Most of the food consumed domestically is produced by small family operated farming businesses as opposed to big corporate or multinational operations which are primarily exporters.
Your attempt to draw some type of subjective line between what
could be considered a small or large family operation is
bordering on nonsense & demonstrating a lack of understanding
about the way such businesses operate. That would also be
ignoring the fact that your vague concept of a large family
operation would also most likely be primarily supplying the
export market.
Yes the Green Paper is a large download. I have a hard copy
here as I was involved in the processes and one was mailed to
me.
Why would it be necessary for me to download it?
You asked for the information and I found you the online link.
If you want to double check what I have said, you now have the information.

Most of the food consumed domestically is produced by small family operated farming businesses as opposed to big corporate or multinational operations which are primarily exporters.

That may or may not be accurate, but saying it does not make it so.

Saying it again and again and hoping that one of those times will suddenly make it so, especially after that fact that it won't has been pointed out, is simply producing more evidence of stupidity or dishonesty.

Now I agree that you could be genuinely convinced that it so, but given your past record you might also be talking out your arse. You could have data that convincingly demonstrates this when presented to a reasonable person, but you have not presented any such data here, so you've done nothing to convince those who don't have the benefit of being you and knowing what you know.

(It's no skin off my nose either way - I'm not the one with the reputation for routinely making bogus claims.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Your attempt to draw some type of subjective line between what could be considered a small or large family operation is bordering on nonsense...

It's always projection.

I'm not attempting to do that. I followed the only definition that was on offer, the one in the page that you were using to try and refute FrankD's original claim, because you failed to provide any other definition. If you want to substantiate your argument then you will have to specify what you meant by "small family-operated producer", and so far the closest you've come is the large producer category on that web page. If that doesn't match what you had in mind it's up to you to specify what does.

Will you?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Why would it be necessary for me to download it?

Why would you think that I implied it was? Are you really this bad at reading English, or is it simply a convenient tactic to deploy when wibbling?

(Also, it's only 3.6MB so it's not a large download, but it's a large document because it has 284 pages.)

I asked you to provide a proper citation. In large documents, a proper citation specifies page number(s) or at minimum identifies the appropriate subsection(s). Supplying a specific citation does not force you to download another copy of the document. You don't even have to look at it yourself to produce one if there are other means of obtaining it. You can place an ESP call a Martian friend who knows the page number as far as I care, as long as the result is a citation to the part of the document that you say supports your claim.

Your evasion makes it look like this is just another case where you can't produce supporting evidence.

If you want to double check what I have said, you now have the information.

This is precisely why many people hold you in contempt. You almost always foist uncaptured negative externalities on everyone else here by making claims but refusing to do your own homework by supplying evidence when requested, and by complaining when you are asked to, and then blaming other people for being appropriately skeptical about your argument if they don't pay the costs of doing your homework. In this case you're asking me and others to read a 284 page document to see if there is evidence in there that might support your position when it's your responsibility to point it out.

And ducking and squirming and refusing to point it out is right in line with your reputation for making claims that don't stack up, so many readers will simply assume you're doing the same again this time. Do you want to change their mind? Then point them at the specific citation!

Heck, I would not be at all surprised if your claim is supported this time, so why not take the opportunity to show it for once?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

A minor piece by Quiggin on Maurice Newman (h/t Marohasy) talking out of his rear end by accusing the BoM of manipulating temperature records.

The problem is that this kind of lunacy is the rule, not the exception on the political right, and particularly in the Newman demographic (conservative older males). The more “hardheaded” they imagine themselves to be, the more prone they are to idiotic self-delusion. Examples such as Nick Minchin, Alan Oxley, Don Aitkin, Peter Walsh, and Dick Warburton come to mind .

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu2 writes,

"Of course there will always be winners and losers in a changing & highly variable environment.
That doesn’t discount the proposition that the majority of
commercial crops that are produced either directly or indirectly for human consumption would likely attract net benefits in an average warmer, wetter world over a cooler, drier world, including rice"

Pretty well everything writtren here is simplistic drivel. Perhaps many plants would do better under warmer and wetter conditions, but the current rate of change far exceeds the ability of most species to adapt. Evolution in the traits required takes time - certainly many times more than 50 years or so. Stu2 clearly just does not understand the process of scale in genetic evolution. The rate of warming is perhaps unprecedented in hundreds of thousands of years. We are expecting species to adapt in decades to processes that normally take thousands of years to unfold. Stu2 is a layman, and can be at least partially forgiven for his ignorance. But when that ignorance morphs into willfull ignorance, thus refusing to accept ecophysioloigical reality, then that goes well beyond the pale. Current projections for climate change are brutal. Most species cannot adapt to the rate of changes expected to occur (and already occurring) in both natural and managed ecosystems. Moreover, Stu2 again willfully ignores the effects of warming and other changes on species intimately associated withg rice and other crops. What about mutualists such as pollinators and natural enemies? Or antagonists such as pathogens and herbivores? Does you simplistic approach factor in effects of warming on them? Of course it doesn't.

Stu2, I am a biologist who does a lot of work with plants in my research. For this reason, like it or not, I know a heckuva lot more about rhe field than you do. Yet you persist with kindergarten-level gibberish. Please, folr your own sake, desist.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Lotharsson,

This is a common courtesy when providing a citation to a large document.

Indeed, why is it that the ideologically driven are so coy about this as exemplified in my latest protagonist at CP who is boasting about his getting the IPCC to change some terminology. His one example kicked off by conflating two non equatable terms.

My task was made harder by not having the Index to AR5 WGI Physical Science Base. It is listed in the Contents in Frontmatter but is not on the list of separate downloads.

I have a number of times tried to download the complete document in one lump, I connect OK and then nothing happens browser just sulks.

Any suggestions?

Stupid, even if the tundra warms to the levels seen in Indoensia, rice WILL NOT GROW THERE.

Because the temperature is NOT the only requirement for plants.

Otherwise we'd be able to grow them in the oven at gas mark 1/3.

Moreover, if Indonesia gets hotter, you haven't shown that rice will grow there: rice preferring warmer conditions may not like the other conditions that pertain in Indonesia that their natural current habitat does not emulate.

So twice over, still, your claims have been incorrect,even if it's not as fatuously ridiculous as "Death Valley is warm, ergo good rice country" which your original claim ABSOLUTELY did not preclude.

Your problem is you make false claims by means of lies of omission.

It's a lie, but weaselling too.

Wow.
Yes very good.
Temperature is not the only thing that matters.
However, rice is grown in warmer climes in places such as Indonesia where they grow more than one crop per calendar year and in the hotter months in many other countries like Japan, Australia and the US.
My original comment was that a cold snap at flowering has a much more damaging effect on yields than an incremental rise in average global temperature over decades.
I did also point out that an extreme heat wave at flowering also negatively affects yields.
Both of those variables are more a feature of seasonal weather conditions than anything else.
Lotharsson.
Repeatedly making ridiculous & unsubstantiated personal accusations does not make it so either.

@turboblocke

Sorry turbo, unabated or not, Olaus' link still reckons the missing heat didn't end up there,

"The temperature of the top half of the world's ocean -- above the 1.24-mile mark -- is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures."

And, more directly countering Trenberth's "The oceans ate my Global Warming" theory, also from the link.

"The cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years."

Indeed, the "mystery" thickens, we're all wondering what happened to that damned elusive Global Warming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQrHbbfGsDA

Olaus, ;)

Teh Stupid

See Durack et al. (2014) Quantifying under-estimates of upper ocean warming. Published just yesterday...

The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming. Using satellite altimetry observations and a large suite of climate models, we conclude that observed estimates of 0–700 dbar global ocean warming since 1970 are likely biased low. This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions. We find that the partitioning of northern and southern hemispheric simulated sea surface height changes are consistent with precise altimeter observations, whereas the hemispheric partitioning of simulated upper-ocean warming is inconsistent with observed in-situ-based ocean heat content estimates. Relying on the close correspondence between hemispheric-scale ocean heat content and steric changes, we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results. These adjustments yield large increases (2.2–7.1 × 1022 J 35 yr−1) to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.

It all depends on where you look. And um, nobody ever said vast amounts of energy were building up in the abyssal depths.

Strawman much? Or are you just clueless?

GSW & Olaus

Are you two fucking muppets really separate entities or is someone wearing a sock on both hands? Because your stupidity, incomprehension and intellectual dishonesty seem, well, interchangeable to the point that I cannot tell your posts apart unless I read the name at the top.

Since you are 50% redundant, why doesn't one of you fuck off permanently? Or perhaps you could only use one hand one week and the other the next? Or something like that.

From the NASA press release that the deniers haven't bothered to read properly:

Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up. Some recent studies reporting deep-ocean warming were, in fact, referring to the warming in the upper half of the ocean but below the topmost layer, which ends about 0.4 mile (700 meters) down.

Landerer also is a coauthor of another paper in the same journal issue on 1970-2005 ocean warming in the Southern Hemisphere. Before Argo floats were deployed, temperature measurements in the Southern Ocean were spotty, at best. Using satellite measurements and climate simulations of sea level changes around the world, the new study found the global ocean absorbed far more heat in those 35 years than previously thought — a whopping 24 to 58 percent more than early estimates.

Or is this just too complicated for you morons to grasp?

@BBD

"perhaps you could only use one hand one week and the other the next? "

I think you've misposted BBD. We're discussing The Science(TM), not your and Jeffs weekend activities/what you do to keep things interesting.

"Or is this just too complicated for you morons to grasp?"

Let's not go there BBD, you'll be drawing pictures next.
;)

#21 GSW, clearly you didn't follow the link I gave in#19

By turboblocke (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

GSW

You aren't "discussing the science". You are just making silly noises. You haven't mentioned #19 or #22.

I don't think you understand any of this at all. I believe, based on a long sample of your posts, that you are a fucking muppet.

@turbo

Of course I read your link turbo. That was the one that said,

"The result: once the high level of uncertainty associated with the calculations was taken into account, there was no change detected in the deep."

Oh dear, but Trenberths missing heat paper from 2011 said,

http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5364/deep-oceans-can-mask-global-wa…

"During these hiatus periods, simulations showed that extra energy entered the oceans, with deeper layers absorbing a disproportionate amount of heat due to changes in oceanic circulation."

"“This study suggests the missing energy has indeed been buried in the ocean,” Trenberth says. “The heat has not disappeared, and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences.”"

All we need now is someone to utter the words "consistent with" even though they're clearly not.

Enjoy turboturd!
;)

Are you two fucking muppets really separate entities or is someone wearing a sock on both hands?

They've been turning up together lately, kinda like two people who work in the same office that seem to spend more time together alone in social situations than your average pair of colleagues do...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Jeff Harvey.
I work in agricultural research and one of those research areas includes rice.
I respect the biologists I work with and they respect the contributions I make as well.
In my field we are continually working towards achieving better
yields through R&D and assisting to promote better farming
practices that achieve long term sustainability and are
ecologically sustainable.
Whether you like it or not, this is just a blog and I live in a democracy where I have achieved an excellent education and where I have the right and the expertise to contribute to discussions, particularly re agricultural matters.
What in particular are you demanding I desist from?
Why do you think your qualifications give you the greater authority to comment on government policy related to NRM?
The point of contention at this little blig is more about political ideology, perspective and focus - particularly the 'do something about it'.
No one who has expertise in the environment is arguing that human behaviour does not impact or that some land use practices need to change.
I believe an inclusive, civil and democratic discussion about the veracity of a suite of practical, workable measures based on shared goals and measurable results is a much better approach than the political 'elitist' and finger pointing approach that you seem to advocate. So far the 'elitist environmentalist' approach has generally not achieved any worthwhile results.
It has instead created distrust amongst the very people you would need to work with youm

Repeatedly making ridiculous & unsubstantiated personal accusations does not make it so either.

More glittering generalities that don't bother to specify what you're talking about or back it up.

You appear to be indulging in the fallacy of Believing Your Own Bullshit(TM), and hence thinking that other people don't see right through your schtick. Either that, or you're happy to give out that impression as a red herring instead of addressing the substantive failures to date in your argument.

It may work elsewhere but it doesn't work here. It's really obvious you almost always make arguments that you either refuse to even clarify or that don't withstand scrutiny.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

I did also point out that an extreme heat wave at flowering also negatively affects yields.

You're rewriting history a bit. I pointed it out, not you, and I did so in much stronger terms than you have ever acknowledged. In response you initially tried to push back on my point by acknowledging a weakened version of it but comparing it with a different problem, but using broad generalities that render the comparison meaningless:

Far more damage occurs from a cold snap during flowering. An extreme heat wave during flowering can affect yield but not to the extent that a cold snap does.

So that's not what other people call "pointing out".

After that I pointed you to a paper showing a 95% yield reduction from a mere 5C rise in night time conditions. (And if we're talking about "extreme", then it would take a 15C drop in night time conditions from the baseline in that experiment to reach the "cold snap" point which is many more standard deviations of extremity! "Extreme" varies depending on the baseline and the baseline is set by the local climate, a point that seems to have escaped your notice despite copious hints.)

Both of those variables are more a feature of seasonal weather conditions than anything else.

No, that's confused.

Seasonal temperatures are a feature of seasonal weather conditions, by definition. But "an incremental rise in global average temperature over decades" is - by definition - a changing climate. That makes the rise in average temperature anything but "a feature of seasonal weather conditions".

Furthermore, the warming climate "loads the dice" and makes it far more likely that extremely warm seasonal conditions will be experienced in any given season and a fair bit less likely that extremely cold conditions will be experienced, as people have been trying to tell you. Under that kind of warming climate you end up (say) getting what used to be "hundred year heat waves" every few years on average instead of every hundred years, and if the average global temperature rises far enough the "hundred year heat waves" eventually become the typical seasonal weather and what used to be typical becomes some kind of "cold snap".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Change the slide on Craig's linked graphs to "T" and wait for the graph to be updated (I had to refresh the page some times). This adds the linear trend to the graph rather than relying on eyeballing it.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Er...change the slider.

You can also try other indices such as Cool Nights, Very Hot Days, etc. The indices are defined here.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

@GSW

Indeed, those climies seek it ecerywhere. :-)

Science is, as always, settled!

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

I just went up and read the emissions from GSW that Olaus seems to be endorsing.

GSW has apparently had a Eureka! moment, because:
- Trenberth said something about ocean depths below 300metres
- Johnson and Lyman said something about ocean depths below 2,000metres

Meanwhile, why does GSW ignore the finding that, "global upper-ocean warming rates are also "biased low" - to the tune of 24% to 55%."?

GSW's first error I have highlighted above can be ascribed to ignorance, but his second error can be nothing other than dishonesty, can it?

Meanwhile, Olaus is cheering errors. As usual.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

Craig, pay attention please. GSW and I just told you guys that the heat is elusive, that it is hard to find in its scientific hideouts. For the last 15 years it was said to be accelerating in the atmosphere, then it awfully fast went 20 000 leagues under the sea, and since then it has been showing itselsf at various depths, via computered portents.

In sum: we agree! :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

The Two Socks

I know it's hard, but try to understand:

Trenberth:

“During these hiatus periods, simulations showed that extra energy entered the oceans, with deeper layers absorbing a disproportionate amount of heat due to changes in oceanic circulation.”

This is the danger of selective quotation - especially when you don't understand the topic. Here, Trenberth refers to "deeper layers" but not the abyssal deep. They are not the same. They may not be used interchangeably in discussions of OHC at different depths.

Now, and for the third time, will one or the other Sock please click this link and read the fucking words.

Thank you.

@BBD

For goodness sake BBD, conspiracy ideation really is your "bag" isn't it. ;)

It's not really that complicated BBD + Craig(?) JC has a post on this and it is substantially a cut and paste of an article over at mainstream denier blog, Reporting Climate Science,

http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/scientists-…

"The implication of this is that a build up of heat in the deep oceans is not the solution to the so called missing energy mystery that has puzzled climate scientists trying to match the observed heat build up on the planet with what the theory of global warming suggests should be happening. A number of climate scientists had previously suggested that heat is accumulating in the deep oceans and that this accounts for the missing energy. "

Com on you two, which bit of

"build up of heat in the deep oceans is not the solution to the so called missing energy mystery that has puzzled climate scientists"

are you having difficulty xoming to terms with. Also,

" A number of climate scientists had previously suggested that heat is accumulating in the deep oceans"

Yeah, old Travesty Trenberth for example. Anyway, have a reread of it all, see if you can do a bit more "ideating".
;)

Dear BBD and Craig, has the accelarating missing heat perhaps taken a Journey to the centre of the earth? Or has it escaped From the earth to the moon, to hide out in a kind of Mysterious island of missing heat?

Computer says yes, at least soon, me thinks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYhtEBfLMlo

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

GSW, I can read the sentences pefectly clear, and understand their meaning. Hmmm...Why can't Delturds? I gather the synapses of BBD's and Craig's miniscule browsers are harvey (sic) functioning due to the accelrating lobal heat. ;-)

Only the limbic system works ok, it appears, why their hands starts working on something small that can be figured out by a lot of touching.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

@TwoSocks

I know what it says at JC's. It is stupidly misleading. Why won't you do as advised and inform yourselves by reading a simple BBC article that will remove your confusion in under five minutes?

Why won't you do this?

Here's the first paragraph:

The deeper half of the ocean did not get measurably warmer in the last decade, but surface layers have been warming faster than we thought since the 1970s, two new studies suggest.

The two studies are the one JC is misrepresenting and another. They share an author in common (F.W. Landerer). Their conclusions are compatible. Neither contradicts earlier work (eg Trenberth; Balmaseda et al.).

The problem here is twofold:

- you don't understand this topic at all

- other people are confusing you by misrepresenting specific terminology

Spare yourself the embarrassment of yet more public exposure as an ignorant dupe and RTFL.

I'm actually doing you a favour here.

@BBD

In the hope of cutting this short, can you just clarify your position BBD? Are you arguing Ternberth's "missing heat" is in Abyssal depths rather than Ocean depths or Ocean depths rather than Abyssal? or somewhere else entirely? The links are all fairly clear, Trenberth's missing heat is still, well, missing.

If you've found it, good for you, but I kind of get the impression you're more interested in labelling JC and Reporting Climate Science as amisrepresenters/informer than actually reading/understanding anything that's written. Twas ever thus on Deltoid I fear.
;)

700m - 2000m OHC is where most of the energy is.

Not below 2000m.

RTFL.

There's some really atrocious climate science communication going around on this issue, but occasionally, a glimpse of clarity (sort of):

Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up.

The average depth of the global ocean is over 4000m, so "the top half" is the 0 - 2000m layer.

Some recent studies reporting deep-ocean warming were, in fact, referring to the warming in the upper half of the ocean but below the topmost layer, which ends about 0.4 mile (700 meters) down.

Translated into English: "some recent studies reporting 'deep ocean' warming were in fact referring to the 700m - 2000m layer".

Now, we add in the systematic underestimation of OHC increase for the 0 - 700m layer of the entire Southern Hemisphere ocean since the 1970s:

Landerer also is a coauthor of another paper in the same journal issue on 1970-2005 ocean warming in the Southern Hemisphere. Before Argo floats were deployed, temperature measurements in the Southern Ocean were spotty, at best. Using satellite measurements and climate simulations of sea level changes around the world, the new study found the global ocean absorbed far more heat in those 35 years than previously thought -- a whopping 24 to 58 percent more than early estimates.

In addition to this rather massive underestimate, in all basins with reasonable data we see OHC increasing in the 700m - 2000m layer as wind-driven ocean circulation mixes warm water from the upper ocean layer (0 - 700m) downwards.

There is no need to invoke the abyssal depths (below 2000m) at any point in a discussion of OHC, global energy balance and so-called "missing energy". That's just misrepresentation and confusion. Incidentally, the NASA press release quoted above is riddled with scientific errors and needs to be withdrawn and rewritten.

Sodding HTML.

* * *

There’s some really atrocious climate science communication going around on this issue, but occasionally, a glimpse of clarity (sort of):

Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up.

The average depth of the global ocean is over 4000m, so “the top half” is the 0 – 2000m layer.

Some recent studies reporting deep-ocean warming were, in fact, referring to the warming in the upper half of the ocean but below the topmost layer, which ends about 0.4 mile (700 meters) down.

Translated into English: “some recent studies reporting ‘deep ocean’ warming were in fact referring to the 700m – 2000m layer”.

Now, we add in the systematic underestimation of OHC increase for the 0 – 700m layer of the entire Southern Hemisphere ocean since the 1970s:

Landerer also is a coauthor of another paper in the same journal issue on 1970-2005 ocean warming in the Southern Hemisphere. Before Argo floats were deployed, temperature measurements in the Southern Ocean were spotty, at best. Using satellite measurements and climate simulations of sea level changes around the world, the new study found the global ocean absorbed far more heat in those 35 years than previously thought — a whopping 24 to 58 percent more than early estimates.

In addition to this rather massive underestimate, in all basins with reasonable data we see OHC increasing in the 700m – 2000m layer as wind-driven ocean circulation mixes warm water from the upper ocean layer (0 – 700m) downwards.

There is no need to invoke the abyssal depths (below 2000m) at any point in a discussion of OHC, global energy balance and so-called “missing energy”. That’s just misrepresentation and confusion. Incidentally, the NASA press release quoted above is riddled with scientific errors and needs to be withdrawn and rewritten.

Wow.
Yes very good.
Temperature is not the only thing that matters.

Then why did you make the claim that it was?

You said "Rice likes it warm". ONLY TEMPERATURE MATTERED in your statement.

Go on. Can you say you were wrong?

No, you can't, can you, because all your bullshit is wrong in usually the same weasel manner. It's the only thing deniers like you, Garry Gitter Says Whut? and the other arseclown brainless morons have left: since you can't get away with blatant lies *all the time*, you resort to giving wrong statements in the "Rice likes it warm. Full Stop". Admitting that is wrong leaves only complete and utter fabrication for you to earn your crust with.

@BBD

Thanks for the laugh BBD ;) Your tortured explanation of where the "missing heat" might be - straddling two papers to reach a conclusion that isn't supported by either is a triumph of faith over evidence.

This is my favourite bit however,

"the NASA press release quoted above is riddled with scientific errors and needs to be withdrawn and rewritten."

I assume that is your expert opinion ;) devoid of substance, as usual, and with the authority of seasoned conspiracy ideator/believer.
;)

Sock

Your tortured explanation of where the “missing heat” might be – straddling two papers to reach a conclusion that isn’t supported by either is a triumph of faith over evidence.

This is rubbish. Go back and read what I actually wrote. Properly this time. Then you can explain, point by point, where what I wrote is incorrect.

Engage seriously or fuck off.

* * *

I assume that is your expert opinion ;) devoid of substance, as usual, and with the authority of seasoned conspiracy ideator/believer.

No, I can go through it point by point. If you dispute any point with me, you can justify your position with referenced argument and in detail or you can concede that you are wrong.

The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years.

[WRONG]

In the 21st century, greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, just as they did in the 20th century, but global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising in tandem with the gases.

[WRONG]

The temperature of the top half of the world’s oceans — above the 1.24-mile mark — is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures.

[WRONG]

Many processes on land, air and sea have been invoked to explain what is happening to the “missing” heat. One of the most prominent ideas is that the bottom half of the ocean is taking up the slack, but supporting evidence is slim.

[WRONG]

Let's see some substantive argument out of you, you lazy fucking troll.

Dear BBD, I think you need to warm a bit to the fact that the accelerating missing heat is hard to find scientifically. The lobality of its global presence is obvious though.

@GSW :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

If you have nothing to say, then say nothing, Olaus.

No need tell me BBD. I know perfectly well that you live after that motto.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

@BBD

Ok, let's go thru your bizarre WRONG assertions point by point,

"The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years."

Well BBD, that was a finding of the paper and in my view press releases should reflect the findings of the papers, rather than your[BBD's] prejudicial views. So +1 for NASA and -1 for BBD.

"In the 21st century, greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, just as they did in the 20th century, but global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising in tandem with the gases."

BBD, it is unequivical that greenhouse gases (CO2 for example) have contnued to accumulate over the 21st century, if you have data to the contrary please post. We then come up against the brick wall that is your "Hiatus"/"Pause" denial. Trenberth, the Realclimate guys etc, all acknowledge the phenomenon and what rational individual wouldn't? But no, BBD and other deltards still hang on to the belief that if they can magic a few hundredths of degree out of nowhere then erverything'll be ok. - I won't push it, feels too much like Dawkins crushing a creationist by explaining God doesn't exist or to a 7yr old, the truth about Santa/Toothfairy/Global Warming monster.

Next,

"The temperature of the top half of the world’s oceans — above the 1.24-mile mark — is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures."

Yeah, this has always been the problem and why Trenberth needed "missing heat" from the deep ocean/ocean depths. Amusing you think this WRONG, the fact there wasn't enough of it is why they "Gone Lookin'" in the first place, idiot.

Finally your,

"Many processes on land, air and sea have been invoked to explain what is happening to the “missing” heat. One of the most prominent ideas is that the bottom half of the ocean is taking up the slack, but supporting evidence is slim."

You've probably been following the WUWT tally, what is it now? 52 excuses for the "Haitus"vs"models of doom" being bloody awful? and the the last bit " bottom half of the ocean is taking up the slack, but supporting evidence is slim." is fairly clear, if anything the paper suggests a slight cooling ( admittedly high degree of uncertainty) so yes, supporting evidence of warming is, well, slim.

If you any other daft ideas BBD, please post.
;)

Its seems that biodiversity is having no trouble finding the so-called 'missing heat'. Species and populations continue to expand their ranges polewards and to higher elevations. The northern hemisphere just had its warmest summer on record. So much for the primary school antics of GSW and Olaus, who appear unable to read or understand the primary literature.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu2 writes,

"Whether you like it or not, this is just a blog and I live in a democracy where I have achieved an excellent education and where I have the right and the expertise to contribute to discussions, particularly re agricultural matters"

Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. You know diddly squat about complex adaptive systems and how they function. Moreover, you are understand the link between biodiversity, global change, ecosystem functioning and the productivity of agro-ecosystems. Your posts are mostly bullshit.

There you go.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

And out the darkness comes the climate scare geezer himself, with to pants on as usual. Jeff, please cover yourself. I know you need to fabricate your own reality to hide your nakedness, but for once, please stay on topic. That maggots are affected by global warming isn's an issue.

So keep your faith in portentology to yourself, experienced first hand or not.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

GSW

[NASA PR:] The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years.

GSW response: Well BBD, that was a finding of the paper and in my view press releases should reflect the findings of the papers, rather than your[BBD's] prejudicial views. So +1 for NASA and -1 for BBD.

WRONG. The false claim is that non-warming of the abyssal depths has any bearing whatsoever on the rate of surface warming.

-1 to GSW.

[NASA PR:] In the 21st century, greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, just as they did in the 20th century, but global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising in tandem with the gases.

GAT has continued to rise (Cowtan & Way 2013) and OHC in the 0 - 2000m layer continues to rise. Fail for the PR and fail for GSW (-2).

[NASA PR:]The temperature of the top half of the world’s oceans — above the 1.24-mile mark — is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures.

And that's just flat-out wrong. You find me a single study that demonstrates this or anything like it. And I can tell you now, this is not a claim made by or even supported by Llovel14. It's just crap in a press release. If you want to argue this point, provide some references supporting the claim. Go on. I challenge you to do it.

[NASA PR:] Many processes on land, air and sea have been invoked to explain what is happening to the “missing” heat. One of the most prominent ideas is that the bottom half of the ocean is taking up the slack, but supporting evidence is slim.

Again, just flat-out wrong. Nobody has ever claimed that the abyssal deep (the "bottom half of the ocean" below 2000m) is "taking up the slack". It's just crap in a press release. Again, if you want to argue this point, provide some references supporting the claim. Go on. I challenge you to do it.

This press release is absolutely appalling. It is riddled with serious errors and misrepresentations.

And you, GSW, do not have the first idea what you are talking about.

GSW

This merits revisiting too:

We then come up against the brick wall that is your “Hiatus”/”Pause” denial.

No. We come up against the brick wall of stupid deniers who do not understand that you cannot measure global warming by measuring surface temperature because the atmosphere is only a tiny fraction of the climate system as a whole, which is mostly ocean.

I have told you this literally dozens of times and *still* you keep up with your moronic shite about pauses and hiatuses. There has been no pause, no hiatus in global warming so long as you consider the OHC of the 0 - 2000m ocean layer.

The OHC of the abyssal deep below 2000m is and was largely irrelevant. Deniers don't understand physical climatology and they don't know the correct terminology so they make a pig's breakfast out of all their arguments.

@BBD

Ok BBD, looks like NASA, JC, Sceptic blog "Reporting Climate Science", Trenberth, RC and the authors of the papers (+Me) on one side, and you and your "denial of fact" on the other. Good luck with that!
;)

GSW

You are simply spouting bollocks.

From Llovel et al. (2014):

Therefore, we estimate the heat uptake by the upper 2,000m of the global ocean to be 0.72 ± 0.1 W m−2. Our estimate is slightly larger than the recently reported estimate of 0.54 ± 0.1 W m−2 for the upper 1,500 m layer computed over 2005–2010 and the estimate of 0.56 W m−2 for the 0–1,800 m layer over 2004–2011.

Can't you fucking read? Look at the depth (0 - 2000m). Look at the numbers for OHU. There's the energy, moron. Right from the study you seem to think supports some denialist nonsense or other.

It is very plain now that you don't understand any of this at all.

So at the last count:

The NASA press release is error-riddled crap, JC is still a contrarian misinformer, sceptic blog “Reporting Climate Science” is confused by the press release, Trenberth, RC and the authors of the papers agree with me and you, GSW stand revealed as a clueless muppet. Again.

Wow @ # 50.
Yes very good.
I said that rice likes warm .
That's because rice likes warm & because the commenting at the time was about the specific influence of temp ranges on rice yields.
No one at any point claimed that it was the only influence.
You are the only one here who wrote the sentence " only temperature matters".
Your post @#50 is a very amusing example of a straw man,.
So thanks for the laugh :-)
Jeff Harvey @# 57 .
Why is it alarming that biodiversity is expanding their populations? Is AGW the only reason that this is occurring?
&@#58
It appears to me from that comment, that even a PhD in biology is vulnerable to human foibles like the one Wow demonstrated?

Let me see if I got this right..

GSW got confused between Trenberth's "deep oceans"( ie, 700m+ depth) and some other author's reference to 2000+ depths.

GSW has had his confusion pointed out to him, along with many pointers to material showing that Trenberth's "deep oceans, ie 700m+) is indeed warming up just as Trenberth guessed it might have being.

And yet GSW steadfastly repeats information about 2000+ depths as if they contradict information about 700m+ depths.

The question is, is GSW an actual idiot?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

Let's see if we can tackle the amazing compendium of errors in Olaus's latest nonsense:

Olaus Petri
October 7, 2014
Craig, pay attention please. GSW and I just told you guys that the heat is elusive, that it is hard to find in its scientific hideouts. For the last 15 years it was said to be accelerating in the atmosphere, then it awfully fast went 20 000 leagues under the sea, and since then it has been showing itselsf at various depths, via computered portents.

1/ There is no such thing as a "scientific hideout". Language's purpose is to communicate, if you speak gibberish, you are defeating the very act you are engaging in.

2/ "for the last 15 years". There is nothing significant about this period, *except* that it is beloved by dishonest deniers due to it being a cherry-pick designed to compare the peak of the world's strongest ever El Nino period with various non El Nino periods since.

3/ "accelerating". Gibberish. Basic physics demonstrates that heat is accumulating. Increasing, even.

4/ "20 000 leagues under the sea". 20 000 leagues is a measurement of DISTANCE, not DEPTH, you utter doofus, and Trenberth didn't say anything about leagues nor 20,000 of them, he said "700 metres, plus". The papers under discussion confirm that Trenberth was correct.

5/ "via computerised portents". The papers under discussion were indeed written with the aid of all relevant modern technology including satellites and computers. Please get back to us just as soon as you can produce your own, better, research using nothing but sticks and a few pebbles.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 07 Oct 2014 #permalink

Dear Craig, your distance to satircal literary references are indeed vast. :-) Any reports from Captain Nemo on the location of the accelerating missing heat?

Perhaps its back in the atmosphere again, you know where the settled science said it should be? :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

More flatulence from Olaus.

"The question is, is GSW an actual idiot?"

Yes. That was simple.

BTW Craig, thanks for demolishing the latest crap from Olaus. He's left with nothing to say except the usual vacuous retort.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

"Why is it alarming that biodiversity is expanding their populations? Is AGW the only reason that this is occurring?'

They aren't expanding you dolt. Distributions are shifting. And AGW is by far the major factor. There are no ifs, ands or buts.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus, I am staying on topic, but you are such an uneducated jerk that you do not even understand the basics. Species and populations respond to changes in the biotic and abiotic environments. When an enormous number of organisms begin to shift their ranges polewards or to higher elevations, they are responding to some external forcing.

AGW s clearly and unequivocally the culprit. The vast majority of range shifts have occurred since the 1980s. I well realize the risk of linking correlation and causation, but in this case the evidence is indisputable. Biotic proxies prove that the warming is ongoing.

Now its generally difficult for me to communicate this basic science to lay idiots like you who have never been near a science lecture in your life, have profoundly anti-environmental views and greatly exaggerate your knowledge in complex fields (Dunning-Kruger anyone?). Heck, you are the dork who can't even properly define the rem extinction (writing instinct in its place).

My crop of current Masters students put you to shame in terms of knowledge.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

... and in my view press releases should reflect the findings of the papers...

I'm guessing you'll find widespread agreement on that point!

But you'll also find just about everyone acknowledges that press releases in all branches of science are prone to over-egging the pudding, or providing a confused rendition of what the paper actually says, or even outright getting it wrong (because they're typically written by PR people, not actual scientists).

That is why it would be really rather foolish to assume that whatever the press release says is what the paper actually says. One has to go read the paper to determine that.

Now, Olaus might indeed be that foolish, but surely you and your self-acknowledge superior scientific faculties aren't, right? ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

Semantics matter.

...biodiversity is having no trouble finding the so-called ‘missing heat’. Species and populations continue to expand their ranges polewards and to higher elevations...

is not the same concept as:

...biodiversity is expanding their populations?

Note the noun that is the subject of the verb "to expand" in the first quote, and compare with the subject of "expanding" in the second quote.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu 2, is it your intention to withhold a proper citation to the pages/section of the Green Paper that supports your claim about domestically consumed domestically consumed agricultural produce?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

Re press releases: Good God, have none of these people ever worked in a large organization with its own media department? I find that after about the third round of 'could you review this' I generally just let it go with the current hopefully-not-unbearable inaccuracies, as, after all, the actual publishers will probably only mess it up anyway...

2Stupid on biodiversity shifting of distribution.

Here, find a copy of 'The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea' by Callum Roberts and read in particular Chapter 12 'Aliens, Invaders and the Homogenization of Life'.

I view the rise of the Cruise Industry with dismay and disdain for those that use it, like hamsters in rows of glass boxes. Some will be caught out though as once familiar ocean currents and wind patterns shift, and rapidly. Costa Concordia's in the making.

I guess you have never considered what some human gut organisms can do to coral reefs when let loose where they should not. Then there are the passengers carried on the outside of the hull. Consider the problems the 'gribble' is working at around Seattle.

Pacific species have been found in the Mediterranean having navigated across the top of the North American continent.

And this is just the sea. Climate change and the northward creep of diseases are now affecting woodland in the UK. Ash dye-back, a fungus in oak and other species stand at risk as others sweep across Europe. Here is an unknown known, depending where your education level is, that is sure to have a climate feedback effect.

For some reason, Idiot deniers like Stu2 never, ever seem to read relevant texts. I have never had a discussion with an ecosystem-damage denier who has read Ocean of Life or any other similar book. They just blank the evidence and deny, deny, deny.

It's a mental illness.

I am waiting for a smart-alec from the trolls to point out my (Ahem!) deliberate mistake in the above. How good is their language ability?

Dear Jeffie, you are a politically blindfolded and self obsessed little maggotologist, and not a climate scientist, but still, perhaps, you and the rest of the deltoid bunch, should try to dechifer this, from Annan:

“Clearly, the longer the relatively slow warming continues, the lower the estimates will go. And despite what some people might like to think, the slow warming has certainly been a surprise, as anyone who was paying attention at the time of the AR4 writing can attest. I remain deeply unimpressed by the way in which this embarrassment has been handled by the climate science insiders, and IPCC authors in particular. Their seemingly desperate attempts to denigrate anything that undermines their storyline (even though a few years ago the same people were using markedly inferior analyses of this very type to bolster it!) do them no credit.”

http://julesandjames.blogspot.se/2014/10/much-ado-about-sensitivity.html

:-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

Oily Prat WRT J&J blogspot (James Annan) have you spotted the comments by DeepClimate yet and the post at Real Climate to which he linked?

So, what is you summation of how this provides evidence for a lack of warming?

Note that the world of science has marched on since the papers that underpin AR5 were published. IPCC ARs are always conservative. See note 8 to the Introduction of Janin & Mandia's 'Sea Level Rise' for why that is.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/janinmandia.html

Dear Lionel, are you referring to he lack of accelerating warming for 15-something years, or your (and fellow cultists) inability to find it? :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

OP, I'm amazed that you quoted, "“Clearly, the longer the relatively slow warming continues..." Does this mean that you now accept that there is global warming?

By turboblocke (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

For additional context, Olaus:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/last-time-carbon-dioxide-levels-111074

""The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland,""

The question is this, Olaus: Do you want to keep making a fool of yourself by posting nonsense comments here, or do you want to improve your understanding and join in an adult conversation where reality is discussed?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

'Make a fool of' himself implies Oily exists in some other state. The man really is an idiot. Unfortunately his tribe ain't instinct.

The Conversation has an article (wryly perhaps?) suggesting that we should all cheer on Maurice Newman's brain fart of holding an independent inquiry into the BoM because it would expose the emptiness of the charges against it. (I think this is politically naïve, but I'm not entirely sure how "Modest Proposal" the article is intended to be).

You'll all be entirely unsurprised to learn that a Marohasy tout who only registered at The Conversation the day the article appeared turns up in comments and is reiterating various debunked and unsupported claims whilst steadfastly resisting requests to provide substantiating evidence. Reminds me of someone else...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 08 Oct 2014 #permalink

All the merchants of doubt have to do is get those in the public who are barely paying attention to latch on to a convenient belief that the 'scientists are undecided' or 'it's all just politics'.

That's the only result they're looking for. That's what they'll get, too.

We know what the inquiry will result in - think NIWA court case, all the Mann enquiries etc. - but it's beyond merely naive and well off into politically obtuse to believe that's what will stick in the memories of folks who'd prefer to keep living their extravagant lifestyles unencumbered by any tedious sense of personality responsibility, thank you...

Lotharsson @ # 74 & # 75.
Just to help you with your semantics issue I have copy/pasted a definition of expand for you (a bit further below)
Both expand and expanding were used as verbs by both commenters. (Jeff Harvey and Stu 2)
The noun is 'expansion'.
Jeff did indeed use expand and did not use shift or shifting.
I'm more than willing to accept he would like to correct expand with shift but he did indeed use expand.
The subject of the sentences and the main nouns were : biodiversity, species and populations.
I guess I should have included all three but there was nothing particularly wrong with the concept according to the wording of Jeff Harvey's earlier comment.
Here's the definition:
expand
/ɪkˈspand,ɛk-/
verb
verb: expand; 3rd person present: expands; past tense: expanded; past participle: expanded; gerund or present participle: expanding
become or make larger or more extensive.
"their business expanded into other hotels"
synonyms: increase in size, become larger, enlarge; More
swell, become distended, dilate, inflate, balloon, puff out/up;
lengthen, stretch;
thicken, fatten, fill out;
rareintumesce, tumefy
"metals expand when heated"
grow, become/make larger, become/make bigger, increase in size/scope;
extend, augment, broaden, widen, develop, diversify, multiply, add to, build up, scale up;
branch out, broaden one's horizons, extend one's operations;
spread, proliferate, mushroom
"the company is expanding"
antonyms: shrink, contract, condense, scale down
Physics
(of the universe) undergo a continuous change whereby, according to theory based on observed red shifts, all the galaxies recede from one another.
give a fuller version or account of.
"the minister expanded on the government's proposals"

As for your green paper question.
I suggest you start with chapter 2 " Australia's Food System" in the hard copy, there are several relevant facts, charts, graphs & maps from pp 26 - 30 (but they may not be numbered this way in the online version)
Chapter 5 is good as it covers information about our food systems in relation to the actual title of that chapter "Safe and Nutritious Food" Hard copy pp 93-117.
Chapter 6 "competitive and productive food industry pp 121-188 (hard copy) has some interesting facts and figures about the development of the Ag sector including 'value add' processing and some comparisons with other sectors.
You will also note if you check the reference sections, a lot of the graphing, mapping, charting and tabling does come from ABS and ABARES as well as other organisations such as ACCC, MDBA DPI, DAFF, AEC and AFGC as they were commissioned by the federal government to collect much of the data for this report.
It was particularly focused on examining opportunities for Australia to expand in to the developing middle class in Asia but it also quite comprehensively covers the domestic market and how it is supplied.
Hope this helps?

Stu2,

You are engaging in semantics. Climate change is already having a devastating effect on biodiversity. Species are adapted to certain climatic windows; in endotherms, for instance, these windows are referred to as 'thermoneutral zones'. Ambient temperatures that fall outside of that range mean that organisms have to use metabolic energy to cool or to warm themselves to maintain body temperatures to survive. If air temperatures get too warm (or cold), then at some critical point they are unable to maintain this stasis. One ecological means of dealing with this is to move somewhere else. That's easier said than done. other places contain extant communities that may or may not be suitable for their survival. For organisms that disperse easily, it may be less of an impediment. However, for less motile organisms, such as plants and soil biota, it is a real constraint. Moreover, abiotic conditions and the suitability of conditions in the new habitats may vary. For instance, we cannot expect trees to merely uproot in biomes with alkaline soils and to colonize habitats with acid soils. The ability of entire biomes to shift is highly conjectural, and impossible given the time scales we are talking about.

Against this background we have a tiny number of bought and paid for shills arguing that pumping more and more C02 into the atmosphere is a good thing. Joining them are a veritable bunch of right wing loonies on blogs who have no scientific background in relevant fields denying that humans have much impact on the biosphere at all, including with respect to climate. These loonies speak the language of those in the over-consumptive developed world who like things the way they are and want to believe that we can have our cake and eat it. If these loonies argue that the tooth fairy exists, these people (Olaus, GSW, Jonas, and you among their armies of stupidity) will tend to believe it, because you for some reason cling to your idealogical limb.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

For instance, given their paucity of arguments, deniers and anti-environmentalists resort to the same tired old bullshit to smear those who are eminently more qualified than they are.

From Olaus: "Dear Jeffie, you are a politically blindfolded and self obsessed little maggotologist"

I've said it a million times and I will repeat it: as important and interesting as the Diptera are (they are vitally important pollinators, predators, decomposers as well as vectors of disease, parasites etc), I don't study them. I am a population and evolutionary ecologist who studies trophic interactions and I focus my work on (1) arthropods, and (2) plants. I study genetic variation in plant-related traits that influence community structure and functions. My research involves a mechanistic approach to better understand top-down and bottom up approaches that regulate community assembly. I also study invasive plants and their effects on native arthropod communities and how processes such as climate change will affect (and are affecting) communities. Lastly, I also work in a research group that examines larger scale processes including the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

All of this is over the tiny pin-sized head of Olaus, who as I have said is scientifically illiterate and instead driven by his own idealogical agendas. Given his rank ignorance, he s left with nothing more than smears which say more about him than about me, I have asked the deniers here - Jonas, GSW and him - what their scientific qualifications are over and over again. Only GSW has replied by saying that he has a basic (BS) degree in chemistry. The two Swedish meatballs have refused to answer the question which we all know here is an answer in itself. It means that they have no formal education in any scientific field. If they did, oh boy, we'd here about it. Deniers tend to make mountains out of molehills, and that includes their ow qualifications. If they had even basic degrees in science, then they would have told us all a million times by now and tried to magnify that. But their silence speaks volumes.

When Olaus could not separate the terms 'instinct' and 'extinct' in a post on Deltoid a few months ago, that was very informative. The terms are completely unrelated. This is an indication of his scientific acumen - meaning he's a hollow vessel.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Just to help you with your semantics issue ...

Ah, the penny finally drops! Stu 2 is a superb Poe!

Surely no-one with a modicum of self-awareness who has just thoroughly butchered the interpretation of "species and populations expanding their ranges" by eliminating the subject of the verb and then turning it arse about to form the notion of "expanding populations" could possibly be stupid enough to try and sanctimoniously lecture the person who pointed their error out to them on semantics?

And even if we allow that level of stupidity, surely they wouldn't attempt to do so by cutting and pasting a great swathe of text from a dictionary, let alone a swathe that defines a term that was not even one interpreted in error?

And even if they had a momentary lapse of competence and did all of that, surely they wouldn't throw an a snide side comment about the non-use of a term that wasn't referred to in the original phrase or the comment pointing out the error, let alone list the nouns in the original phrase leaving out from the list the one whose elimination helped generate the error in the first place!

Well played, sir, well played! Your ideas humour is intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

As for your green paper question.

Thanks. Is there any chance of narrowing it down a little? It shouldn't take three whole chapters to show what proportion of domestically consumed domestically produced food comes from small family-operated producers.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes Jeff Harvey.
Much of my previous comment was about semantics.
That was because of Lotharsson's comment @#74.
He quite clearly commented : " semantics matter".
But thank you for offering an answer to the original question.
I do note however that you are still operating under the concept of assuming an 'environmental elitists finger pointing' self proclaimed authority which causes you to make sweeping comments about human politics.
There are plenty of us out here who are doing plenty to improve land use practices and also to reduce our carbon footprint. We are achieving excellent, measureable, practical results. We may not be highly cited academics like you often say you are, but in many cases we are actually very well educated, have plenty to contribute and we may very likely have done more of that 'something about it' than you have.

No Lotharsson.
Because I have a hard copy, I do not need to download the online version.
That means I will not be copy/pasting the narrowed down bits and pieces for you.
I have supplied you the link and because you requested further clarification I supplied you the chapters and page references .
I don't have the time or the inclination to retype statistics, paragraphs, references etc that I have already read.

Also Lotharsson.
You would probably be aware that reports such as this one have ammassed large amounts of data and they are represented and interpreted in different ways depending on what particular aspect of the Ag sector is being focused on.
Those 3 chapters have most of the relevant information but there is more in other chapters and also in some of the reports, research and submissions that have only been referenced.

Stu 2, I am bemused.

You cited the Green Paper as supporting your claim. Surely that means you actually read the bit that support it, so you can find it again quite quickly because you'd recognise it when you skimmed through it again? Or are you quietly trying to admit you don't know which part of the paper supports your claim, if any?

(To be clear: I am not asking you to download or retype anything. I just want to know where I can find the bit that supports your claim so I can read it myself.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus

You ask for assistance in understanding James Annan's recent remarks on his blog. Most of it was a complaint that scientists have been too slow to acknowledge the slowdown in the rate of surface warming, which is unfair. In 2007 (AR4) this slowdown was not evident (you can see this easily yourself from the surface temperature record viewed at 2007).

This in itself is a point invariably overlooked in hindsight and it should not be.

So *at most*, scientists have had seven years to consider why the rate of surface warming has slowed. GAT since 2007 has been depressed by two strong La Ninas, which was duly pointed out in 2008 and 2010 and 2011.

Serious work on the underlying physical mechanisms that have in hindsight operated to slow the rate of surface warming since the mid-2000s was unsurprisingly begun only recently.

When all the context is considered, I think JA's remarks were over-stated and even unfair.

* * *

[Annan:] Clearly, the longer the relatively slow warming continues, the lower the estimates will go.

This is straightforward. JA is referring to sensitivity estimates derived from short start and end periods in the "observational" record. These are inevitably very much influenced by transient natural variability, which is an acknowledged weakness of this approach.

Lotharsson.
That's a good idea.
Read it yourself.
:-)

Once again Stu, you do yourself no favours. If you can't pinpoint the section that you're relying on, it looks like you didn't read the paper or that you're being deliberately unhelpful. Neither reflects well on you.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu 2

October 9, 2014
Lotharsson.
That’s a good idea.
Read it yourself.

That's a brilliant idea. Next time I need to submit a paper, instead of footnoting everything, I will simply attach a bibliography and add the words, "Here are my references, read it yourself".

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Why are *all* deniers *always* moronic?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Read it yourself.

How bizarre. That's precisely what I'm asking you to help me with, and you are refusing. It's almost like you don't know whether the paper actually supports your claims, let alone where that support lies.

For everyone else, hands up those who think that if I read the three chapters that Stu 2 mentioned I will find they do not support Stu 2's claim?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu2

It is very clear that you have been caught out bullshitting yet again. The *only* way out of this is to do as L repeatedly asks and provide a page # citation (at the very least).

Lotharsson

Sorry, we crossed.

My hand is raised.

Stu2 opines, "we may very likely have done more of that ‘something about it’ than you have" (referring to our carbon footprint).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Moreover, if you claim to be actively reducing your carbon footprint, then why the climate change denial?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

BBD and Stu 2,

I'm happy for Stu 2 to cite a selection of paragraphs, perhaps by typing a distinctive sentence from the first of the selected paragraphs so that it can be searched for in the PDF, or a diagram or table by number (or by typing the exact title so that it can be searched).

It's really not hard if you actually have a specific portion of the document in mind, and these kinds of methods to identify the portion in question are pretty obvious to someone who is trying to point readers to the selection they are referring to.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

2Stupid,

Lotharsson.
That’s a good idea.
Read it yourself.

so you don't have the confidence to present just a few key statements supported by page and para' references so that any assertions of yours can be cross checked.

This is general practice BTW and essential in completing any academic course of study.

You have been asked specifically to rectify this but have evaded action once again.

Room 101 for you as you have long ceased contributing anything useful, and furthermore fill this blog with long spiels that could have been constructed with a buzz phrase generator.

BBD, so far my hand is up too.

I reckon if Stu 2 keeps dodging and dissembling we could probably find half a dozen volunteers, assign half a chapter each and report back. Pretty much every other time he has been coy about his evidence and his bluff has been called, his claims come up short. What are the chances of it happening again?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

For everyone else, hands up those who think that if I read the three chapters that Stu 2 mentioned I will find they do not support Stu 2′s claim?

Ooh, ooh! Pick me! Pick me! I know this one!...

2Pid thinks we - and the lurkers - won't remember his farcical, caught-with-trousers-around-ankles responses to documenting BoM's supposed 'case to answer' and now this. He's wrong.

Here's another thought experiment, and this one has the benefit of avoiding paying for Stu 2's negative externalities.

Imagine someone other than Stu 2 posts a comment claiming to have read the three chapters and to have found no reasonable support for his claim. They do not provide any more details than that. Now we have two competing claims, both citing exactly the same evidence and both roughly as well specified as each other.

In the absence of anything more specific from Stu 2, which one of those claims would be more credible or more plausible if we applied Ockham's Razor?

I suspect that FrankD converged on the position implied by this thought experiment some time back ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Sounds reasonable to me, Lotharsson.

:-)

Lotharsson @ #3

For everyone else, hands up those who think that if I read the three chapters that Stu 2 mentioned I will find they do not support Stu 2′s claim?

Only saw this after posting my #8 above, so take it my hand is also raised.

If he comes back with anything what is the betting he does 'a Plimer'?

Oh phooey. My head is aching with all this nonsense about rice and other major food crops. I'll just show my problem with minor additions to stewingagain's quoted words.

“Of course there will always be winners and losers in a changing & highly variable environment. That doesn’t discount the proposition that the majority of weeds and pests that infest commercial crops that are produced either directly or indirectly for human consumption would likely attract net benefits in an average warmer, wetter world over a cooler, drier world, including rice thereby reducing the net amount of food produced in that warmer wetter world.”

It seems never to have occurred to stewie & friends that the "winners" in a warmer wetter world might be pests and weeds. These may be able to do a lot more damage under changed conditions even if the desired plants and animals unexpectedly grow just as well as they do now.

If these clowns are sincere about growing conditions benefiting plants and other growing things, I've not seen one of them consider the possibility that undesirable pests and weeds might possibly benefit even more than the plants and animals we need for food. Anyone who's seen rust ruin a previously impressive wheat crop because of too much rain at exactly the wrong time really ought to think a little bit harder about the benefits of more downpours at unseasonal - or any other - times. Then think about grapes and cherries and all those other crops that are sensitive to too much moisture too close to harvest.

@Turoblocck, have you caught the Harvey Lyme disease again? Of course I know that there has been a global warming, who doesn't?

Again: The globe has been warming,

How many times do I have to tell you this?

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Is that an oil slick I see.

For the umpteenth time, why doesn't the Swedish meatball follow his own advice and go 'instinct'?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus

Of course I know that there has been a global warming, who doesn’t?

Again: The globe has been warming,

How many times do I have to tell you this?

dT = 3ln(560/280)/ln(2) = 3C

dT = 3ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 4.5C

Perhaps emissions policy be a better idea.

#15 Good start OP, so where exactly do your views differ from mainstream science?

By turboblocke (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Turbobloke @ 100 & Lotharsson.
The Green Paper is titled " Australia's National Food Plan".
It is not titled " How much food on your table is grown by family farming businesses".
Neither is it titled ' How much food on your table is grown by big corporations'
Even further, it was not commissioned to be used as a tool to solve that particular equation for Lotharsson.
It is a comprehensive report that was commissioned by the
federal government to examine Australia's opportunities in the ag export market as 'the food bowl of Asia'
In chapters 2, 5 & 6, you will also find some quite detailed info
about Australia's domestic market.
It is not hard or difficult to work out that most of the food on
your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.
(Not by big corporate entities).
If you're actually interested in learning some more about food production & the supply chains that deliver food to your table, you now have the information to read for yourself.
If you're not interested then I guess you won't be reading it?

Jeff Harvey @ # 6.
Can you please define 'climate change denial' ?
My questions are usually about the 'do something about it'.
I actually do practical, measureable stuff about repairing & enhancing native flora and fauna.
It's based on the concept that 'the glass is half full' and we can build on what we know works.
You appear to be more interested in pointing fingers and blaming others and touting a political ideology.

I get it.

"It's the vibe".

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu2

Where's that fucking reference?

Where is it?

How dare you carry on posting as if nothing had happened. You spit in the eye of every commenter here with your behaviour.

Consider the act reciprocated.

Stu, please excuse me if this seems harsh, but this business where you refuse to show the references and how you came to your conclusions begs the question: what are you trying to accomplish here?

By turboblocke (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

My view on AGW doesn't differ from main strem real climate scientists. It is your cultic view that differs, since it is SF and based on apocalytptic based anti-science. The folks in Salem would be proud of you though.

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

'It's the vibe' indeed. Best keep Rover away from your homework, 2Pid!

I found this, in Chapter 6:
" ...structural adjustment with declining farm business numbers (i.e. fewer people operating the same land area), increasing technological adoption and use of other management models such as corporate farming. "

So, according to a document poorly-referenced by a denier claiming that it supported his argument (sounds familiar, huh?), we find the document in fact says the current trend is away from the situation he claims exists. How far away? Not sure yet...

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Craig Thomas @ # 1 BBD $ # 23 and Turboblocke @ # 24

You all seem to be operating from the mindset in this comment by Craig @ # 1 and of course Lotharsson’s demands for an easier way for him to cross check my comment about the food on the table.

" That’s a brilliant idea. Next time I need to submit a paper, instead of footnoting everything, I will simply attach a bibliography and add the words, “Here are my references, read it yourself”.
?
What on earth are you attempting to argue with these comments?
The best I can conclude is that from the little blog discussion that has ensued here, you have extrapolated that you don't think I know how to correctly submit an academic paper for publication?
Have you read the "National Food Plan. Green Paper 2012" ?
It actually invites people to 'cross check' the information via a bibliography and a very long list of references, footnotes, submissions, citations etc.
It didn’t specifically consider publishing a singular, irrefutable “gotcha” statistic designed for Lotharsson at deltoid to ‘cross check’ Stu 2's comment at deltoid and even though it may surprise you, It wasn’t published for that purpose. Neither did I link it for that specific purpose.
As I commented earlier. If you or anyone else here is interested enough to learn more about food production and the supply chains that provide the food on your table as well as the export market, The “National Food Plan” Green paper 2012 is worth reading. The link that Frank D provides up thread was one very small part of the work that was commissioned by the federal govt to produce this publication which is why I mentioned it originally.
Chapters 3, 5 & 6 contain a great deal of information about the domestic market and seriously, it’s not hard to work out that most of the food on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations. Those operations are of course of varying sizes depending on where they operate, what particular commodity/ies they produce, what markets they supply etc. However compared to the big corporate and multinational entities, who are primarily focused on export markets, these businesses are small and could also be defined as 'the little guys'.
Whether you believe me or not based on whether you believe I could or could not pass some type of academic referencing requirement is not actually my problem.
What I posted had nothing to do with your beliefs about me personally but a comment about the operation of ag businesses and the influence of NRM and whether they help or hinder ‘the little guy’.
Frank D’s assertion that the majority of the food on our tables was produced by “not family farming operations” but rather by big companies and corporate operations was not right.
My comment that the majority of the food on your table is most likely produced by small family farming operations is a valid comment, or if you like, it is ‘not wrong’.
If you are truly interested in the logistics of food production and how government policy supports or hinders it, (rather than personally attacking me) then I can only suggest you read the paper. Chapters 3, 5 & 6 do provide quite comprehensive information about the domestic food market.

Yes very good Craig Thomas @ # 27.
It does indeed say in chapter 6 that Australian farming has undergone much structural adjustment. Australian agriculture has largely embraced and utilised technology and we are among the best in the world as far as that goes. The vast majority of Australian farming land however is still operated by family farming operations even though there is now also investment and ownership by corporate entities.
I'm pleased to note that you at least are interested enough to learn more about Australian food production.
Perhaps you guys are confusing the concept of farming family operations with the concept of subsistence farming or even perhaps farming methods practiced last century in Australia?
Also, please be aware that the focus of this particular paper is primarily about examining opportunities for Australia to grow its export market and of course export production is not designed to land on your domestic table.

And because I do hope you're truly interested Craig Thomas (and hopefully not just merely looking for some possible singular 'gotcha statistic) please also be aware that the original discussion was centred around whether bureaucracies involved in NRM are assisting or hindering 'the little guy' in agriculture.
A question for you.
If government policy is assisting and encouraging a trend towards corporate farming in Australia, particularly in growing the export market into Asia, would you consider that a good thing or a bad thing for 'the little guy' in agriculture?

So...what you're saying (using many, many words) is, you can't point to where your source supports your argument, and it's still "the vibe".

Meanwhile, I'm reading this document, which appears to be a big long apologia for corporate interests and deregulation, and I discover this:
"Although the GM seeds (and any associated technology fees) were more expensive, in 90 per cent of farms this cost was offset by reduced pesticide costs. "

Riiight. So much for the credibility of his "Green Paper" of yours, Stu2.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6147/734

This doesn't happen without pesticide overuse, encouraged by the release of roundupready crap:

"Weeds are a serious problem for wheat farmers in Australia, where herbicides have gradually become almost useless."

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes very good Craig.
To a very large extent, much of govt policy has been directed towards corporate interests and derugalation while hopelessly ignoring real, on the actual ground issues such as pesticide resistance, carp infestation, over clearing, etc etc etc.
The bulk of bureaucratic NRM policy is also misdirected and
has caused a developing mistrust between NRM bureaucracies and the bulk of land managers (ie family farming operations).
I did not link the Green Paper as the ultimate 'credibility' source
on all matters agricultural, I linked it to explain the background
of Frank D's ABS link. I did clearly state the purpose and the focus of this paper on a number of separate occasions.
The point of disagreement here was my comment about the
food on the table and that the majority of it was most likely
produced by family farming operations.
If you are wishing to move on to discussing NRM policy and
how it relates to family farming operations vs corporate farming operations, I'm interested in participating.

It depends whose table you're talking about - the fatties who waddle around Woollies filling up their trolley mainly from the freezer section and the chips & fizzy drink aisle are likely excluded from your generalisation.

I've forgotten why this question was either interesting or important, beyond it being a demonstration of your inability to properly reference your arguments.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes Craig.
Absolutely no argument from me re the fatties waddling around the woollies freezers.
I agree that those tables would most likely have less food that was produced locally as far as % average would be concerned.
But other than agreeing with you I certainly don't have a 'gotcha statistic' for a reference to 'cross check'.
I'm also not a bit surprised that you lost track of the discussion.

The point of disagreement here was my comment about the
food on the table and that the majority of it was most likely
produced by family farming operations.

You're lying by omission. We all remember that your original claim was about "small family-operated producers", a term you introduced to try and clarify what you meant by "the little guy". See the "small" part?

Now I don't have a problem with that as long as you own the fact that you haven't been able to justify your original claim and now you're modifying it to one that you think you can. That's how rational discussions proceed. However you can't seem to decide whether you want to simply drop the "small" when talking about family operated producers, or redefine it:

However compared to the big corporate and multinational entities, who are primarily focused on export markets, these businesses are small and could also be defined as ‘the little guys’.

So now a big family operation is "a little guy"? Maybe it would be clearer and less likely to look like spinning if you dropped the term "little guy" in favour of "family operations, no matter how large or small"? However, that would make your original comments about how put upon the "little guy" is by various regulations look a bit less compelling since your definition of "little guy" includes a bunch of large producers. In that case, you'll probably want to modify that argument as well, right?

Any chance of picking a term and a definition to go with it and sticking with them both?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

It didn’t specifically consider publishing a singular, irrefutable “gotcha” statistic designed for Lotharsson at deltoid to ‘cross check’ Stu 2's comment at deltoid and even though it may surprise you, It wasn’t published for that purpose.

More tasty red herring. You were asked for a citation that supported your claim. Intent or purpose of the cited work is completely irrelevant as long as it provides the support you claim it does.

Neither did I link it for that specific purpose.

You are again lying by omission, i.e. pretending now that the discussion is about why you first linked to it rather than the fact that you cited it to support your [already modified!] claim:

The comment was and the point remains that most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.
The link Frank supplied and the rest of the research supplied for the Green Paper both show that.

So that appears to be an admission that it doesn't support your original "small" claim unless we redefine "small" to mean "family operated, no matter how large", and is clearly a citation you're providing in support of your modified claim. However, despite citing it you remain unable to explain which specific parts of it (and/or which references that it cites) you used to draw your inference:

Chapters 3, 5 & 6 contain a great deal of information about the domestic market and seriously, it’s not hard to work out that most of the food on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations.

If it's "not hard to work out", it won't be hard for you to provide a brief summary of your "working out", right? And if it's not hard, then presumably such a working out will only rely on a small subset of the three chapters, a subset that you could point out in your summary, right?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Oct 2014 #permalink

Yes I really can see why you lost track of the conversation Craig.
So Lotharsson?
Are you personally disagreeing with my comment re the food on the table?
Or are you just being personally disagreeable?

Also Lotharsson.
Please reread my comment @# 69 previous page which is the actual comment you are still making such a fuss about.
You appear to have slipped a small word in there.

Greaseball Olly opines,

"It is your cultic view that differs, since it is SF and based on apocalytptic based anti-science"...

...says a guy with no formal qualifications in any scientific discipline and who routinely derides the qualifications of many tenured scientists (including myself). Moreover, the same guy gets many, perhaps most, of his views from blogs run by people who also have no scientific qualifications.

If Olly is so convinced that he can separate sound from shoddy science, on what professional/educated platform does he base this? I have asked him innumerable times what his education is and his response is always the same: silence, and change the subject. Given his misuse of the term 'instinct' awhile back, I don't have much faith that Olly has anything close to even a basic understanding of climate or environmental science. My views also support the mainstream view, which goes on to argue that inaction could have dire consequences on humanity.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu2's posts get dumber and dumber. His response to climate change is thusly summed up: "I actually do practical, measureable stuff about repairing & enhancing native flora and fauna".

The only way we are going to stave off the disastrous effects of overconsumption of natural capital, social injustice and systemic collapse of ecosystems associated with this and processes linked to it including habitat loss and degradation, overharvesting, climate change etc. is to address the political and socio-economci factors underlying it. You appear to be too naive to understand this. Many eminent scientists have written about it over the years, but you appear the approach which is akin to giving a terminally ill patient with pneumonia better tissues on which to blow their nose. You like to deal on small scales with the symptoms and not the disease, which is the combined effects of the human enterprise.

All your posts reveal Stu2 is that you do not know very much about global change biology and the measures needed to address it. I may as well be corresponding with a mediocre high school student.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

Are you personally disagreeing with my comment re the food on the table?
Or are you just being personally disagreeable?

Neither.

I am being appropriately sceptical about your claim unless and until there is some evidence to back it up. So far you refuse to specify how you derived it except in rather vague handwaving terms. It's no skin off my nose if you fail to substantiate it, as it's not my argument.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stu 2, please help us all out. What specific word are you alleging that I "slipped in there"?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

It's a small adjective and a small word Lotharsson that you may have slipped in front of the subject of the sentence.
:-)

Stu 2, I can't read your mind and you didn't even bother to quote what you objected to, so I do not know what you mean.

Please specify what you mean. It's what people having a good faith discussion do when requested, and your reputation for bad faith surely does not need to get stronger.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus

My view on AGW doesn’t differ from main strem real climate scientists.

So approximately this, then:

dT = 3ln(560/280)/ln(2) = 3C

dT = 3ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 4.5C

Which would mean ecological disaster and human catastrophe without emissions abatement. Disaster and catastrophe without policy intervention.

So WTF are we arguing about if you agree all the above?

He's an idiot who genuinely believes that the true meaning of 'the science' can be found at Nova's, the Sticky Bishop's, and Watts'.

Seriously. You've found more intelligent things in your socks.

bill / Olaus

You have a point there bill. I should have asked Olaus to name some names:

main strem real climate scientists

We need examples. Olaus? If you wouldn't mind? Four names will do.

Thanks

Expect Olaus to say Carter, Ball, Michaels, Baliunas et al.

If he says Hansen, Mann, Trenberth etc., then he'll parody himself. He and his lot have been smearing mainstream climate scientists for years. And, as Bill said, Olaus gets his science lessons from some of the most wretched sources.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

Jeff

Expect Olaus to say Carter, Ball, Michaels, Baliunas et al.

Indeed, but them's not

main strem real climate scientists

.

So those names will not suffice. He would have to try again in order to comply with his own definition of 'mainstream real climate scientists'.

Hopefully this brief exchange will save him a wasted comment.

October 10, 2014

It’s a small adjective and a small word Lotharsson that you may have slipped in front of the subject of the sentence.

IOW "I lied, please waste your time finding proof"

October 10, 2014

Stu 2, I can’t read your mind

Don't fret. StuPid doesn't know what he's thinking either, which is why he keeps asking people to do his reasoning for him,

There's absolutely no need to fret Lotharsson.
I would suggest to you that if a discussion on this little blog is causing you to fret then perhaps you might need to expand or shift your focus?
You have claimed above @ # 37:
" You’re lying by omission. We all remember that your original claim was about “small family-operated producers”, a term you introduced to try and clarify what you meant by “the little guy”. See the “small” part? "
Because you have been carping on about this original comment for over 2 pages and you are now making the biggest fuss about 'the "small" part, even though I would suggest that you are sweating the small stuff, I decided to check the original comment on page 2 # 69.
When I checked I realised you may need to check yourself before you continue.
What I discovered was a tad surprising because you were very adamant earlier re Jeff Harvey's 'expand' comment that "semantics matter".
I was hoping not to continue on about it as it's not really all that big a deal and I mistakenly assumed that once you had checked for yourself you may have just let it go.
Unlike you apparently, I'm more interested in actually discussing the issue rather than focusing on small words and building a massive personal attack over such a small thing.
Apparently you are unable to let it go, despite my suggestion that you could check the original comment.
So here it is, copy/pasted directly from comment 69 page 2 of this thread:
" For a simple example, most of the food that appears on your table is most likely produced by family farming operations."
So Lotharsson:
Can you see the 'small' part that you are claiming is there in that original comment?
I also find it highly amusing that you are suddenly claiming you can't read my mind.
You often attempt to do that and draw some highly amusing, utterly ridiculous and completely unsubstantiated conclusions about what you think I think from what you think I meant from what you read I said that means I think something that you have extrapolated from what you think of my comment etc.
Eventually however it becomes tiresome.
My best suggestion at this point is that maybe we might have to agree to disagree about what you claim I meant.

:-)

I decided to check the original comment on page 2 # 69.

...

Can you see the ‘small’ part that you are claiming is there in that original comment?

Priceless!

(1) You reckon that I may need to "check myself before I continue". I already did, six whole days ago and rebutted the claim you are now making back then in part (B). And unlike you I read the original comment and the ones that followed, and I read the entirety of each comment.

(2) As a quote in my linked comment shows you didn't check the comment you mentioned. You checked one selected sentence and carefully ignored the preceding sentence that informs it. You know, the sentence that contains the "small" that I can see but you can not?

(3) Your #69 is not even the original comment. The original is also quoted in my comment from six days ago.

(4) Your #69 was part of a continuing discussion of your claim that "It’s the ‘big guys’ who can absorb and pass on those costs" unlike the "little guys". That claim cannot even be expressed unless you distinguish between small and large guys, which you did by dubbing "family farmers who grow rice" (#54) and "family farming operations" (#69) as "small" or "little guys".

So I did not put the words "small" or "little" to describe family farming operations into your mouth. You did, and more than once.

Stu 2, you frequently appear to not know what you said (let alone anyone else), you can't even find out what you said when you "check" it and you accuse others of making things up when they report what you did say. How much worse must it be when you report what other people wrote? This is exactly why we want actual citations from you when you refer to other sources rather than your own impressions or inferences of what those sources say.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Oct 2014 #permalink

What specific claim are you rebutting Lotharsson?
Somewhere back in this thread I have already stated that your attempt to draw some type of subjective line between a small and large family farm is bordering on nonsense.
A family farming operation is a family farming operation (ie not a corporate or multinational farming operation)
You are truly sweating the small stuff, rather ironically over the fact that you have read something into what you think of my use of the word small and how it is used in different comments and apparently you have constructed some important division between a small and large family farming operation that has become extremely important and that somehow proves something about me or you or whatever?
I disagree that my comment @ # 54 was the comment that originated the ensuing discussion. But you are correct that I used the word ‘small’ in that particular comment, however ‘small’ was not used to create a division between family farming sizes.
Even Frank D understood what the division was about at @ # 85, despite the fact that his claim was not correct:
““The food that appears on your table” is produced by the largest 5% of farms – ie the corporate operations.”
And then later still @# 88 “Not family businesses.”
Frank D also supplied the ABS link which prompted me to supply further information (ie the Green Paper).
But anyway, as usual, you have managed to fill up this little blog with a lot of you said, I said, I think, you meant so therefore I have read something into what you said etc.
.

But you are correct that I used the word ‘small’ in that particular comment, however ‘small’ was not used to create a division between family farming sizes.

Hooray! I never said that it was in that comment, and you've finally agreed! In fact I said the opposite - that your initial statements conflated "small" and "family operated". Because the two terms were conflated "small" cannot have been used then to create a division of the set of "family farms".

So we're part way there...but wait:

...I have already stated that your attempt to draw some type of subjective line between a small and large family farm is bordering on nonsense.

And I've already pointed out that your statement is the nonsense here, because I never made that attempt.

However I pointed out that you tried to unconflate "small" and "family farms" by talking about large family farms after your initial comments. I characterised that move as "shifting the goalposts" for your argument. I also agreed with you that family farms could be large, and indicated I had no problem with you clarifying what you meant as long as you (a) were clear about what you meant and (b) modified your original argument accordingly. Not sure about (a) since you're now trying to project the "division" you tried to draw on to me, but you don't seem to have achieved (b).

Even Frank D understood what the division was about at @ # 85,...

What you quoted from FrankD is predicated on your initial implication that large farms cannot being family farms, or to put it another way "family farms are small". That is a precise fit with your initial conflation of "small" and "family farm", but is at odds with your point that family farms can be large farms. You can't have it both ways...

I disagree that my comment @ # 54 was the comment that originated the ensuing discussion.

Oh, my! That explains a great deal.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 11 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus

You were going to provide a short list of mainstream real climate scientists whose views you agreed with.

I am genuinely curious to see your pick. Remember - mainstream real climate scientists means what it says - a proper track record of publication in high-impact climate journals and no whacky non-mainstream ideas. So eg. not Lindzen or Spencer because both have made careers out of being wrong.

Over to you...

Lest we forget, this is the very surprising (but welcome) statement by Olaus that I would like to explore in more detail:

My view on AGW doesn’t differ from main strem real climate scientists. It is your cultic view that differs, since it is SF and based on apocalytptic based anti-science.

Zzzzzzzzz.
Boring Lotharsson.
Perhaps you might like to explain why it is so important to you to make such a fuss over what you think I think about the different sizes of family farms?
They are still family operated businesses and most of the food on your table was most likely produced by a family farming business.
In amongst all your pontificating about size, I missed Jeff Harvey's 'the only way' comment @#42.
I will have to let all the people I work with know that all their efforts to improve land practices and restore and enhance native habitat that some non specific group of eminent scientists think it's just all pointless unless we dismantle the combined effects of human enterprise.
Further, I will also have to let them know that this non specific group of eminent scientists think that everybody else is just ignorant and stupid and don't care and are deniers and 'anti environmentalist' and 'right wing' etc.
I'm not sure how the biologists I work with will take that, let alone the land managers?

"it’s just all pointless unless we dismantle the combined effects of human enterprise"

Since when did I use the word 'dismantle'? Good grief Stu2 you are really dumb. Its hard to exaggerate the fact. You are utterly clueless. You appear to think that the current environmental predicament is not so bad, and that a few tweaks here, and few tweaks there will suffice. At the same time, you intimate that the dominant global political system - free market absolutism and corporate capitalism - is just fine and that no significant changes are needed. Forget the fact that every ecosystem on Earth is in decline and that humans have used up something like 50% of natural capital since 1950, with no signs of that abating. In fact, the trajectory is getting worse. Again, you are profoundly ignorant. The sad point is that you think you are informed. But, given you have clearly not read any of the empirical literature, you are happy in your black box.

Its no use for me or anyone else fort that matter to try and discuss any of this with you. You are stuck in your little sandbox. Well done.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 Oct 2014 #permalink

ahem, make that 1970. Less than 50 years.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 Oct 2014 #permalink

No Jeff Harvey, you definitely didn't use the word dismantle. I chose it to summarise your comment @ # 42.
If you think it's inappropriate I apologise. I'm a bit busy today as I'm putting the final touches on a presentation I've been asked to give re opportunities & progress in agricultural land practices to a large group of students tomorrow.
Presenting with me will be a PhD biologist, a PhD soil scientist
ahighly qualified agronomist and a hydrologist along with others.
Would you like me to pass on your message that a group of eminent scientists believe there is only one way to tackle issues such as human land management practices and that they're
stuck in a little sand box and it's no use ?

2Pid and plot permanently part company. Film at 11.

What we're all waiting for - with some mirth but very little in the way of anticipation, as it won't happen - is the risible OP to come up with his list of 'mainstream climate scientists' he agrees with.

bill

+1

:-)

Boring Lotharsson.

A-ha, another patented Stu 2 dodge! I have BINGO!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 11 Oct 2014 #permalink

Would you like me to pass on your message that a group of eminent scientists believe there is only one way to tackle issues such as human land management practices ...

Stu 2 misinterprets again! Film at 11.

(I think I'm coming around to FrankD's view.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 11 Oct 2014 #permalink

Trust the meatball to refuse (or be unable) to answer the question about 'mainstream climate scientists' and instead past up a link from an anti-environemntal denier blog run by a bunch of unqualified quacks.

By the way, BBD, I am aware that the clowns whose names I listed the other day are not mainstream scientists but are on the academic fringe, but its clear that Olly doesn't know any climate scientists except those who are smeared by hacks on the web logs he worships.,

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Oct 2014 #permalink

What's even more hilarious is how non-climate scientist Watts says this; "Doing a blog is hard work; doing a blog on climate science is even harder. It requires dedication, research, tolerance, and huge amounts of effort".

It's too bad that this clown doesn't have any of the criteria to mention that word 'science' in relation to his blog. The right wing, deregulatory dedication is there all right, but tolerance? Effort? Research?

Research is science that is published in scientific peer-reviewed journals, not the shite that is peddled by Watts and his ilk. It takes remarkable hubris for Watts to pat himself on the back in this regard. But clearly he has no idea about the many times larger efforts put forward by experts - not weathermen, but professionally trained climate scientists who have many other things to do that Watt's doesn't even come close to understanding. Teaching, supervising students, conducting research, lots of admin, and writing papers and grants all by many factors exceed any of the crap Watts is doing. And yet he pats himself on the back.

Now THIsis the self-valorization meatball goes on about all the time. But since the meatball worships Watts and others like him, he won't come close to saying that Watts has a bloated ego. Now there is hypocrisy for you.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus, you evasive weasel!

Do I have your attention now? Good.

My view on AGW doesn’t differ from main strem real climate scientists. It is your cultic view that differs, since it is SF and based on apocalytptic based anti-science.

Stop pretending my comments are invisible. Stop being an evasive little shit.

Name some names please.

Moron: "Deltoid seems to have been one of the first bricks to fall in the unscientific wall. Tim should be proud. He was paving the way, helping others to get out:" + link to a Wattsian ad hominem irony failure ("One of the most acerbic, caustic, & self-absorbed climate blogs" Hah!)

As Mike Mann points out, Tamino has a new full-time job and has moved into a new home. I.e, he has a life, unlike you.

And doubtlessly he'll soon be pumping out papers - and even text books - again, which is more than can be said for you. Or Watts.

And where's this list of 'mainstream climate scientists'? Evasive weasel indeed...

Yes Bill, like Tim, Tamino does anything for the cause. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 12 Oct 2014 #permalink

Thank you for making it perfectly clear to lurkers - regulars, of course, know this already - what a pathetic little nonentity you really are, Oily.

A fine exemplar of your sordid tribe.

Dear Bill, if I (and a few others) didn't through in some bones of reality now and then, this asylum would die completely.

I "thank you" is order, me thinks. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 13 Oct 2014 #permalink

'through in some bones' 'I "thank you" ' 'is order' 'me thinks'.

What a sad, pointless, sub-literate little twerp. The only way you could benefit the world is by becoming instinct.

No worries Bill, the accelerating global warming will take care of me. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 13 Oct 2014 #permalink

We should be so lucky... sadly, none of you toxic wankers is likely to get what you, truly, deserve... other poor bastards, and other poor bastard species, will do all the paying for your braying, feckless, contemptible stupidity.

Oily Patch spewed:

... through in some bones of reality now and then...>

Sheesh! Way past time you went instinct extinct Oily Wad.

And yes accelerated global warming may well take care of you, where the phrase in italics is being used in the common colloquial sense of seeing to your demise. Which of the many plagues that could be let loose by a combination of pathenogenic organisms extending their range through either warming directly or by being moved by climate refugees (what do you think is behind events in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa[1]) will get you is unknown.

On another ecological note. The media here were getting excited by the presence of breeding bee eaters on the Isle of Wight. Maybe not so good for our native flora and fauna when one bee eater can account for about 200 bees in a day. Honey, WTF is that, never tasted it!

[1] Another factor in sub-Saharan Africa is the loss of previously available oceanic food species being scooped up by large factory ships belonging to developed countries. and all but wiped out. Then of course the pundits in the west condemn those nasty pirates that operate off the Horn of Africa.

Aaaaarghhhh!
Sheesh! Way past time you went instinct extinct Oily Wad.

And yes accelerated global warming may well take care of you, where the phrase in italics is being used in the common colloquial sense of seeing to your demise. Which of the many plagues that could be let loose by a combination of pathenogenic organisms extending their range through either warming directly or by being moved by climate refugees (what do you think is behind events in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa[1]) will get you is unknown.

On another ecological note. The media here were getting excited by the presence of breeding bee eaters on the Isle of Wight. Maybe not so good for our native flora and fauna when one bee eater can account for about 200 bees in a day. Honey, WTF is that, never tasted it!

[1] Another factor in sub-Saharan Africa is the loss of previously available oceanic food species being scooped up by large factory ships belonging to developed countries. and all but wiped out. Then of course the pundits in the west condemn those nasty pirates that operate off the Horn of Africa.

Olaus

My view on AGW doesn’t differ from main strem real climate scientists. It is your cultic view that differs, since it is SF and based on apocalytptic based anti-science.

Which ones? Why won't you say?

Are you a contemptible, casual liar who has been caught out in a blatant falsehood?

Could that be it? Why don't you defend yourself? I'm calling you a liar, Olaus. In a public forum. Why don't you respond?

Because you can't? Because it's true?

Bill, BBD, like his hero Jonas, Olaus is also unable to tell us his day job. Not exactly difficult if he indeed has one, but both of these dopes refuse to say what they do. That's because they would be totally and utterly humiliated when forced to admit that their backgrounds are a million light years removed from science. As long as they keep their mouths shut on this issue, they think they can give the impression of being informed and educated in relevant fields.

Its therefore easy to understand why Olaus won't say who he is referring to with mainstream climate scientists. He doesn't know any. So he's bluffing again. I suspect the job question was easier for him, and since he steers away from this, what do you expect from asking him to name a few statured climate scientists?

He's a moron. We all know that.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Oct 2014 #permalink

Jeff

I don't mind his being an idiot, it's the lying I object to.

Isn't it odd that almost whenever you scratch a climate change denier underneath you find a cesspool of dishonesty? I have never encountered a group so identifiable by a generalised absence of good faith. It's actually quite remarkable.

BBD #84 and I have been running into a fair bit of that elsewhere of late. You put then right once and then they come straight out with a carbon copy statement of their original BS in another topic thread, and then another.

They are playing the old game of time-wasting because the effort between both sides is so asymmetric. They are like oil tankers - keep flushing out their bunkers again and again.

The field day went well yesterday.
The students saw, first hand, examples of land practice techniques that improve outcomes accross the triple bottom line.
I saw no reason to let anyone know that a whole group of 'eminent scientists' are totally convinced by scientific evidence there is only one way to tackle these issues and that what good people are doing at regional and local scales is fundamentally a waste of time and demonstrably stupid.
There was in fact plenty of scientific evidence to the contrary.
From what I saw yesterday, working together at regional and local scales achieves excellent outcomes.

Oh! And yesterday was October 13th and not stuck in a blog that still comments in September and still repeatedly screeching about THEM (whomesover they might be, but they apparently have something to with stuff like BAU & 'big oil & right wing think tanks etc) 'doing something about it' .
The people I work with are 'doing something about it'.

Yep, we're all so unimportant that you had to scoot right over here and tell us how unimportant we are twice!

Also, I have been responsible for the production of over 250,000 local-native tubestock plants in the last decade and a half, and their distribution to hundreds of rural properties. Amongst other things, including playing a key role in several highly successful political campaigns.

And that's just me. Don't be persuading yourself that you're the one who's really doing something about the environment, eh?

Because what ever else you're doing, you're still an active agent of the dark side...

> Why are *all* deniers *always* moronic?

How else could one *be* a denier?

> Isn’t it odd that almost whenever you scratch a climate change denier underneath you find a cesspool of dishonesty?

Same point as above.

> I have never encountered a group so identifiable by a generalised absence of good faith. It’s actually quite
remarkable.

I find it all across the right wing.

Good for you Bill.
That is definitely an example of 'doing something about it'. I'm not sure if Jeff Harvey and his band of 'eminent scientists' would agree?
I have no idea what you call 'an agent of the dark side' is?
Whatever it is, it doesn't sound particularly scientific? Sounds more like science fiction?

I saw no reason to let anyone know that a whole group of ‘eminent scientists’ are totally convinced by scientific evidence there is only one way to tackle these issues ...

...but unfortunately NOT because you finally realised that your characterisation is verballing Jeff and abusing basic logic.

Heck, you haven't even understood that you are talking about the wrong time scale if you are trying to address what Jeff said.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Oct 2014 #permalink

Note that Stu2 is a dishonest little weasel (actually, that is being unfair to the Mustelidae.). Given his comic-book level approach to the political arena and how it relates to environmental science, he's left with useless retorts, including the phrasing of eminent scientists in quotations.

Stu2 wouldn't know what a qualified scientist is from a hole in the head. To reiterate, the solutions to the growing threat of environmental problems and the equity dilemma are locked up in economics and politics at the global scale. John Terborgh (a leading ecologist) wrote about this in his book 'Requiem for Nature' back in 1999 and others have repeated it. All Stu2 is left with is pedantics.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Oct 2014 #permalink

Lastly, I am NOT saying that local initiatives do not matter. They do, but only on a small scale. But they won't work if we fail to address major political issues at the global scale. At the heart of them is social injustice driven by the current political system under the guise of allegedly free markets and capitalism, all under the umbrella of the Washington Consensus.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Oct 2014 #permalink

So how many years Jeff do you give us before a great "Dog and Cat die off" due to global warming as predicted by Oreskes and Conway.
Do you agree with them we should expect that sort of thing in about 9 years or would all these recent papers suggesting lower climate sensitivity suggest the moggies might survive a little longer.

http://www.geocurrents.info/physical-geography/eco-authoritarian-catast…

all these recent papers suggesting lower climate sensitivity

A few low-ball estimates using a methodology that only gives low-ball estimates is as nothing compared to the large stack of work using other methods all of which yield higher estimates.

The problem with "lukewarmerism" is that it requires rejecting the vast majority of the evidence we have pointing to higher sensitivity. Rejecting evidence, aka denial.

Lukewarmerism = denial.

Denial is a mental illness, Rednoise.

One could wonder if Lake Superior qualifies as lukewarm? Me thinks it does since Lake S is 6,1 degrees colder than last year and 3,5 degrees colder than normal.

What's your take BBD?

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

A few low-ball estimates.

Yes there have only been about 14 published papers giving estimates for climate sensitivity 40% below the average of the IPCC models. Not so many as the excuses made for the pause so nothing to see there.

Olaus

You are a liar, Olaus. You lie and then pretend that you have done nothing wrong. That is unacceptable, so there's no alternative:

Fellas, have your heard the latest on Lake Superior, the lake that heats up faster than any other on the planet?

I’m sure it is experienced first hand.

Rednoise

Yes there have only been about 14 published papers giving estimates for climate sensitivity 40% below the average of the IPCC models. Not so many as the excuses made for the pause so nothing to see there.

14 papers giving estimates for CS 40% below the "average for the IPCC models" eh?

List them all.

You never did list all the "excuses" (hypotheses) you claim have been made for the slowdown in the rate of surface warming. IIRC you claimed there were 38 but that's not as important as the fact that when asked - repeatedly - to list them, you refused.

List them all.

Olaus has been show to be a liar because he made a claim that was false then refused either to acknowledge it, back it up or withdraw it. He is dishonest scum. In my opinion, you are too Rednoise, but there will now be a formal test.

Over to you.

Dear BBD, I gather you think it’s not Luke Superior but Lake Superhoterior?

A list of mainstream real climate scientists please. Four will do.

Dear BBD, I gather you think it’s not Luke Superior but Lake Superhoterior?

A list of mainstream real climate scientists please. Four will do.

BBD *1
Well if you insist

Lewis and Curry 2014
Skeie et al 2014
Loehle 2014
Spencer and Braswell 2013
Otto et al 2013
masters 2013
Lewis 2013 twice
Hargreaves et al 2013 4 times
ring et al 2012
Van Hateren 2012 twice
Aldrin et al 2012
Lindzen and Choi 2011
Annan and Hargreaves 2011 twice
That's at least 13, more if you take account of some publishing more than once in the same year.

The 38 excuses for the pause you can find yourself.

What is the evidence you are claiming is ignored?
These published papers
What are these predictions which prove your case.

Is it the predicted milder wetter winters
The lack of snow in the Northern hemisphere
Is it the Arctic Death Spiral all gone by summer 2015
Is it the decline in Antarctic sea ice, the highest its been since satellite records began.
Is it the death of the ski industry, our children wont know what snow is.
Is it the failure of the surface temperature to rise by the predicted 0.2 degrees C/decade producing the unpredicted
pause which has given rise to all those excuses.
Or the alleged extinction of the aldabran banded snail.

Check yourself in for some therapy as you seem to be the one in de Nile

Lindzen and Choi 2011 was a rehash of their 2009 paper which Lindzen admitted was "embarrassing..contained mistakes".
2011 was rejected by the journal they submitted it to because it was poor quality, in the words of one reviewer:
""The paper is based on...basic untested and fundamentally flawed assumptions about global climate sensitivity""

So you're left with 12.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

Annan and Hargreaves 2012 found, " We estimate the equilibrium climate sensitivity to be about 2.5°C with a high probability of being under 4°C, ". But I think you left that one out, in favour of cherry-picking your results.

Luckily, the IPCC includes *all* of them, not just the ones that help construct a narrative, as you do.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

Aldrin et al 2012 says this in its conclusion:
"climate sensitivity is slightly smaller than the best estimate given in IPCC (2007)"
and
"the estimate of S presented here is likely to be underestimated because the net
forcing of the other indirect effects are likely to be negative"

So Aldrin et al in no way supports an estimate of low sensitivity.

So that's 2 strikes from 2 that I've looked at. You're down to 11.

Shall we just cut to the chase and assume you are using standard denier methodology:
- cherry pick results that support a narrative
- refer to papers that are poor quality and don't support their conclusions
- misrepresent the conclusions of better-quality papers

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

We can deal with your misrepresentations of all of the Annan papers by referring to Annan's explicit statements:
"We thought we had sorted out the sensitivity kerfuffle several years ago,"
"Climate sensitivity is 3C
Plus or minus a little bit, of course. But not plus or minus as much as some people have been claiming in recent years".

You're down to 9.

"http://julesandjames.blogspot.jp/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html"

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

If the Hargreaves et al 2013 paper you are referring to is "Skill and reliability of climate model ensembles at the Last Glacial
Maximum and mid-Holocene", this paper does not find anything on sensitivity. Maybe you just cut and pasted this list from a denier-site aimed at unscepticals who don't check things?

Provisionally, you're down to 8.
(Unless you can set me straight on what paper you are talking about.)

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

Ring et al 2012 finds,
"t is humanity, not nature, that has increased the Earth’s global temperature since the 19th century. Humanity is also responsible for the most recent period of warming from 1976 to 2010"
However, their modelling is very very basic, where they simply plug in assumptions for volcanic forcing, aerosols, etc... and vary those assumptions in order to get a result that matches the instrumental record.
How this translates to ECS is anybody's guess, because they just can't be measuring ECS with this method. This is probably why this paper wasn't published anywhere important.

This one is indeed a "low sensitivity" paper. So score 1 for you.

The fact it's conclusions are almost certainly wrong for ECS doesn't work very well for your argument.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

Curry & Lewis says ECS is between 1.1–4.1 degrees. So not low sensitivity at all.

I'm bored of this.

Rednose is guilty of deliberate self deception and knowledge polution.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

Thanks for taking the time with the Gish Gallop, Craig, but it really is a standard copy/paste of Denier Chum. Nom nom nom, eh, Rednoise?

To which we counter: NASA, NOAA, CSIRO, BoM, NIWA, the Met Office, and all the world's Academies of Science. Oh, and 97% of climate scientists and their published papers.

That's as against your unlucky 13 'usual suspect' collection, that Craig's already pared down to, what, 8? And hasn't finished. But you're a willing fool if the message is politically convenient, right?

Oily, are you still here? Is there really a more pointless, chronic attention-seeking individual than yourself active on the global intertubes, do you reckon?

So, I get it. They aren't actually talking about "low sensitivity" at all. (Well they are, but it's a case of them hoping their unsceptical dupes fail the, "I don't think that word means what you think it means" test).

All they are talking about is compiling a list of sensitivity studies where the selection criteria is, is (the conclusion) < (the IPCC mean).

This passes for neither wisdom nor knowledge in any reality, no matter how alternate.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

"Low sensitivity" is the debunked crap from Lindzen and Idso.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 Oct 2014 #permalink

'Unskeptical dupe'. Pretty reasonable summation of you, don't you think, Rednoise? Great reliable, not-at-all-ideologically-distorted source, incidentally!...

('Red' he calls himself - but what a maroon!)

Craig Thomas

Thank you for dealing with that spew of misrepresentation and (some) crap papers while I was asleep. Much appreciated.

I'll do Spencer & Braswell (2011) [not '2013'; no such paper] which is just wrong. See eg. Trenberth, Fasullo & Abraham (2011).

So wrong that the editor of the journal that published it resigned when the full scale of the debacle became public.

Rednoise

The 38 excuses for the pause you can find yourself.

You have already been shown up as a liar on this thread so this is *very* unwise.

Get a fucking list up, troll.

And Craig, thanks for tracing our lying troll's crib-sheet to paid shills at a free-market industry front group - a cut'n'paste from Pat'n'Chip writing at Cato.

Rednoise once again stands stripped of his intellectual pretensions and revealed to be parroting lies peddled by free market ideologues.

Curry and Lewis found a median TCR of 1.3
Ring et al found values between 1.5 - 2 dependent on which data set they used
Annan and Hargreaves got rid of the long fat tail
Aldrin et al found a mean value 2, right at the bottom of the IPCC range
Lindzen and Choi published
Spencer and Braswell published

Can also add
Padilla et al 2011 most likely value TCS as 1.6
Gillet et al 2012 estimated TCR of 1.3-1.8

Seems more of a trend than the "few low-ball estimates " suggested.
Also getting extremely bored with this.

Which brings me back to my original question

So how many years do you give us before a great “Dog and Cat die off” due to global warming as predicted by Oreskes and Conway.
Do you agree with them we should expect that sort of thing in about 9 years or would all these recent papers suggesting lower climate sensitivity suggest the moggies might survive a little longer.

'Seems more of a trend' only to those who confine themselves to reading denier blogs (or The Australian). That'd be the 'unskeptical dupes' then! Next...

QED. You have outsourced your 'thinking' to the Deniosphere. You are both boring, and wrong. Next.

Curry and Lewis found a median TCR of 1.3

Not 40% below IPCC model mean. Not what you claimed. And also the result of a methodology that always gives underestimates and a choice of data sets that low-balled even with that methodology.

Ring et al found values between 1.5 – 2 dependent on which data set they used

2 when done right and *neither* 40% below IPCC. Not what you claimed.

Annan and Hargreaves got rid of the long fat tail

A&H estimate ECS ~2.5C. Not 40% below IPCC. NOT WHAT YOU CLAIMED.

Aldrin et al found a mean value 2, right at the bottom of the IPCC range

NOT WHAT YOU CLAIMED

Lindzen and Choi published
Spencer and Braswell published

Both garbage. S&B rebuttal linked above. Dessler (2011) rebuts L&C11.

Can also add
Padilla et al 2011 most likely value TCS as 1.6
Gillet et al 2012 estimated TCR of 1.3-1.8

NOT WHAT YOU CLAIMED! TCR is not ECS!

You are clueless, dishonest and parroting garbage from Denial Central.

And you have been nailed for it, big time.

Now where's the 38 "excuses for the pause", you lying sack of shit?

Lying sacks of shit do not get to ask further questions until they finish answering those already asked of them.

Which brings me back to my original question

Let's see which lying, denier shill for the free market nut-jobs you cut and paste from this time.

You have outsourced your ‘thinking’ to the Deniosphere

Agreed, Martin Lewis writing in that hotbed of denialists, GeoCurents, must rank alongside Delingpole in your deniosphere list, for his take down of Oreskes and Conway and their book on Eco-Authoritarian Catastrophism.
I don't think he calls them eco-loons but he must come close.

http://www.geocurrents.info/physical-geography/eco-authoritarian-catast…

Rednose, The current environmental crisis we are already into is the result of many anthropogenic factors working cumulatively. Climate change is one of them, albeit it is perhaps the final nail in the coffin.

Like other AGW deniers, you are being pedantic.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

Rednose seems to think that after getting caught out either lying or misrepresenting through personal incompetence (or both) this time and many other times, that his next opinion will be taken seriously as something plausibly supported by the evidence.

Reputation? How the fark does it work?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

You might also want to include this comment from James' blog in your "Denioshere"

Clearly, the longer the relatively slow warming continues, the lower the estimates will go. And despite what some people might like to think, the slow warming has certainly been a surprise, as anyone who was paying attention at the time of the AR4 writing can attest. I remain deeply unimpressed by the way in which this embarrassment has been handled by the climate science insiders, and IPCC authors in particular. Their seemingly desperate attempts to denigrate anything that undermines their storyline (even though a few years ago the same people were using markedly inferior analyses of this very type to bolster it!) do them no credit.

Pretty much sums up the few old codgers left on Deltoid who still deny the pause/hiatus/slowdown/lack of predicted rise in surface temperature.

http://julesandjames.blogspot.de/2014/10/much-ado-about-sensitivity.html

Agreed, Martin Lewis writing in that hotbed of denialists, GeoCurents, must rank alongside Delingpole in your deniosphere list, for his take down of Oreskes and Conway...yada yada yada rave foam jabber

Are you drunk? WTF does that have to do with anything? I mean, I know you've been caught with your pants around your ankles and all, but that doesn't even make it to 'squirrel!'

Let's face it, Rednoise, you're as pointless, credulous, and as inconsequential as your buddy, Oily.

Rednoise

You are a liar and a parrot for the free marketeers.

Leave.

Clearly, the longer the relatively slow warming continues, the lower the estimates will go.

And if we were to accept that logic, then when we have the next period of relatively fast warming, like we already had in the 15 years or so before the 1998 El Nino, estimates will go back to well above the long term average for estimates? If that's the case then it points out that your procedures for estimating ECS aren't as robust as you'd like them to be (i.e. "insufficiently superior analysis"?), given that by definition it is independent of these kinds of short term fluctuations in surface warming rates.

Accordingly, none of that has any significant bearing on policy...

So it's not a well thought through comment, that, which is unsurprising given that you posted it ;-)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

Lotharsson

The much-misunderstood Annan is often in the mouths of fake sceptics. As you probably know, he was talking about estimates for TCR/ECS derived from the irritating fad for using short periods at the beginning and end of the "observational" record and a simple EBM.

As you point out, this methodology is highly sensitive to natural variability. It's also highly sensitive to errors in the estimates for OHC, OHU and aerosol negative forcing. Or put another way, the choice of data sets and assumptions used by the researchers can impact the results.

All methods for estimating sensitivity have their drawbacks, but IMO this is the least robust of the lot.

BBD#29

IPCC model mean TCR 1.8
Curry and lewis est tcr 1.3 -28%
Ring et al lowest tcr 1.5 -17%
Padilla est tcr 1.6 -11%
Gillet lowest est tcr 1.3 -28%

IPCC best estimate ECR 3
A and H est ecr 2.5 -17%
Ring et al est ecr 1.8 -40%
Aldrin 2012 est ecr 1.76 -41%

Lewis 2013 est ecr 1.64 -45%
Otto et al 2013 est ecr 1.91 -36%

So the estimates of climate sensitivity below the IPCC values keep on coming, getting lower by the day but close your eyes and cover your years and shout and swear.

This was your claim:

Yes there have only been about 14 published papers giving estimates for climate sensitivity 40% below the average of the IPCC models. Not so many as the excuses made for the pause so nothing to see there.

Your claim was false.

Your source was a pair of notorious climate liars writing at Cato.

You haven't apologised for making a false claim despite a thorough demonstration that you were lying. Why not?

You haven't provided your list of 38 hypotheses why there has been a slowdown in the rate of surface warming either. Why not?

These are the only two things you have any reason to return here to post.

This would be clear to an honourable man, so it is plain what you are.

So the estimates of climate sensitivity below the IPCC values keep on coming

And they keep on getting debunked.

So the estimates of climate sensitivity below the IPCC values keep on coming.

Except they're not strictly "below", are they? Because each estimate is a range, and the upper end of the estimated ranges tend to be above (say) ECS of 3C or TCR of 1.8 (and the ones that don't tend to have flaws that are really obvious to even the half-competent).

So from a policy perspective, that doesn't help us a great deal. We still can't rule out ECS high enough to be extremely serious.

You're kinda like the guy happy to play Russian Roulette for shit and giggles because if you squint at a carefully chosen subset of the estimates and steadfastly ignore the carefully not chosen ones you can tell yourself the average estimate is maybe even as low as 2.5 or 2.3 rather than 3, and you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge to yourself that the ranges on the carefully selected estimates that you choose to acknowledge generally go all the way up to 5 and 6.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

According to SPM AR 5 WG1 the transient climate response is likely to be in the range 1.0 - 2.5°C. Taking the average of the range is intellectually bogus.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

Forgot to include
Loehle est ECS 1.99 -34%
Skeie et al est ECS 1.8 -40%

You aren't paying attention, Rednoise.

How long have those cats got?

@BBD

Is this true BBD, are all our pets doomed? Or is it just another case of alarmists getting a bit carried away? as usual ;)

In your view, how long do you think we've got before the inevitable "Petageddon"?
;)

Oh, Teh Stupid is out in force again.

Lose arguments, get publicly humiliated for lying, get shown up to be shill parrots and what do we do?

Double down on the mouth-breathing idiocy.

@All

The whole "Petageddon" story's gone climate mainstream with references over on WUWT,

"we are dealing with a science that in some cases has lost all sense of seriousness, such as the bonkers claim that “climate change” will start killing off felis catus en masse in just a few years."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/15/can-big-data-make-sense-of-the-bi…

and other coverage last month at the Quadrant,

"We’re Doomed … Kittens and Puppies Too"

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/09/doomed-kittens-puppies/

The interesting thing is not so much the ridiculous statements, as the fact that Oreskes seems to have been thrown under a bus by those you'd most expect to buy into this rubbish; the usual half wits and ideologs at Deltoid remain silent on the issue.

I sense a change in the air.
;)

So that's 11 estimates for climate sensitivity tcs or ecs I can be bothered to find from the original list. These 11 are on average 30% below the IPCC values.
Agreed its not the 14 and 40% but its certainly more than the couple of low ball estimates you claim.

So an easier question for you BBD,, one even you might be able to answer, how long have the moggies got?

Rednoise

So your first claim has been comprehensively debunked. You are exposed as a liar who parrots free market shills.

Most of those studies are flawed, and some are junk. None of them shift the range of sensitivity enough to remove the urgent need for emissions reduction. For policy. For change.

That's your first false claim dealt with.

Now we'll move on to the second lie: the 38 hypotheses for the slowdown in the rate of surface temperature warming.

Your claim. Made more than once. Now provide your list or go.

Interesting article from CSIRO:
http://theconversation.com/plants-absorb-more-co2-than-we-thought-but-3…

It turns out that,
"The new study shows that CO2 concentrations are actually lower inside a plant’s chloroplasts — the tiny chambers of a plant cell where photosynthesis actually happens. This is because the CO2 has to go through an extra series of membranes to get into the chloroplasts.

This means that photosynthesis takes place at lower CO2 than models assume. But counterintuitively, because photosynthesis is more responsive to increasing levels of CO2 at lower concentrations, plants are removing more CO2 in response to increasing emissions than models show.

Photosynthesis increases as CO2 concentrations increase but only up until a point. At some point more CO2 has no effect on photosynthesis, which stays the same. It becomes saturated.

But if concentrations inside a leaf are lower, this saturation point is delayed, and growth in photosynthesis is higher, which means more CO2 is absorbed by the plant.

The new study shows that when accounting for the issue of CO2 diffusivity in the leaf, the 16% difference between modelled CO2 in the atmosphere and the real observations disappear."

You learn something new everyday.

Well, except for Rednose & co.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

Flks tonight's Catalyst episode promises to be potentially pretty interesting & relevant here in case y'all haven't already heard - ABC TV 8 pm

PS. What no October thread yet?

By Astrostevo (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

See : http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/

On the supposed "pause" in Global Overheating which really isn't according to all the climate experts who have dedicated years of thought and study into the issue.

By Astrostevo (not verified) on 15 Oct 2014 #permalink

I was scurrying around the internet looking for more Cato Institute agitators and I found one.
He's name is "Randy Trenton", he loves Ron Paul, and climate change is obviously a hoax.
Had a fun exchange with him - on the subject of Antarctic ice loss he linked to this:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120013495.pdf
Which is written by H. Jay Zwally - not an academic paper, just a workshop extract. Anyway, it turns out that just one month after that workshop, Zwally put his name to a paper that claimed to "reconcile" all the varying methods and results and concluded that Antarctica was losing mass.

Craig Thomas:
shortly after the workshop notes you link to (not a scientific paper, did you notice that?) the following professional academic paper was published:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183
A Reconciled Estimate of Ice-Sheet Mass Balance

Craig Thomas:
That paper stated:
"Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by –142 ± 49, +14 ± 43, –65 ± 26, and –20 ± 14 gigatonnes year−1, respectively"

Craig Thomas
And:
"“We can now say for sure that Antarctica is losing ice and we can see how the rate of loss from Greenland is going up over the same period as well,” he added....See More

Craig Thomas:
And guess who was among these different teams using different methods?

Craig Thomas:
"H. Jay Zwally"

Craig Thomas:
So what you did there was make an assertion this contrary to current science, then you backed it up with a link to not-peer-reviewed-research, despite the fact that proper published work by the same author corrects his workshop abstract.

Craig Thomas:
So here it is again: my advice, Randy, is to stop visiting dishonest kook-sites whose purpose is to disseminate misinformation and con unskeptical dupes into following an ideology that rejects science, facts and reason.
Stick with genuine professional science instead.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

Flks tonight’s Catalyst episode

I saw a brief interview from the reporter involved on the ABC morning show. I wasn't thrilled with the approach as the reporter described it. I'll make up my mind about watching when I know what mood I'm in at the time. (I'm finding myself less and less tolerant of dopey stuff from our "national broadcaster" lately. If I hear good things about it, I can always watch later on iview.)

LMAO! WUWT and Quadrant considered mainstream?! Whatever will our little darlings come up with next?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

Global cooling.

These days it's not who you know but who you link to that is very revealing. Mind you, links to WUWT and it's ilk don't tell us any more than the content of the posts already made clear.

By turboblocke (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

Hey, have you noticed that even the IPCC ITSELF has sensitivity estimates below the IPCC sensitivity estimate mean!

SHOCKING TRUTH REVEALED!!! ROFLMAO!

@wow

Exactly wow, and the modal values are even lower. IPCC best estimates are starting to look untenable in the light of what we now know. Doom and gloom predictions, even when they involve household pets as we've seen, get more and more ridiculous as the evidence for CAGW fades.

Nostrovia comrades!
;)

GSW

IPCC best estimates are starting to look untenable in the light of what we now know.

What rubbish. We now know - as we have known for some years - that paleoclimate behaviour provides a best estimate for ECS of about 3C.

All these low estimate papers are either badly flawed or simplistic and methodologically incapable of doing anything other than producing underestimates for TCR and ECS.

If you had any idea at all what you were talking about you would know this. But you are a denier, so it's axiomatic that you are clueless.

GSW

Just confirm something for me: do you understand that the lowest plausible estimates for TCR and ECS still require urgent policy action on emissions?

Do you understand that there is no comfort for deniers and inactivists here?

LMAO! WUWT and Quadrant considered mainstream?! Whatever will our little darlings come up with next?

Ah! The world of inverted reality which I have come up against elsewhere, one who has so far cited rankexploits with a piece by Brandon Sholenberger, notrickzone, Forbes,

a gun-slinging 'computer scientist' C J Shaker a very serious case of NOT getting it.

I could easily counter each of his misleading posts but then wonder what is the point arguing against wilful ignorance.

Craig's Gish Gallop counter is well received by me here thanks Craig, Rednoise sounds like he has the same hymn sheet as Shaker.

Coincidently I have just pointed Shaker at Zwally but the paper that appeared in 'The Warming papers' in connection with the Dark Snow Project - see Climate Crocks.

Saw Curry on Catalyst last night.
She had the following points:
- we just don't know, it's uncertain
- the oscillation has caused changes in cloud cover which is causing cooling
- sensitivity is lower than previously thought because of recent instrumental data
and some other crap.

My initial reactions were:
- we know lots, uncertainties don't detract from facts and physics
- what changes in cloud cover? Is this published anywhere?
- sensitivity studies *not* based on just recent data still don't show low sensitivity. What could that be telling you?

I don't think Curry is aware of any sensitivity study that isn't based on instrumental data, that's her problem. That's denial, right?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

Rednose is ineducable and shameless:
Rednose:
"Aldrin et al found a mean value 2, right at the bottom of the IPCC range"

This is what Aldrin said, you complete fucking idiot:

“the estimate of S presented here is likely to be underestimated because the net
forcing of the other indirect effects are likely to be negative”

I've already pointed this out, why do I have to do it again?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

Craig Thomas

[JC paraphrase:] – the oscillation has caused changes in cloud cover which is causing cooling

[...]

[Craig T:] – what changes in cloud cover? Is this published anywhere?

As far as I can see, the cloud cover argument seems to hinge on the ISCCP data:

ISCCP global low cloud 1983 - 2010

So how reliable are the ISCCP data?

Evan et al. (2007)

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) multi-decadal record of cloudiness exhibits a well-known global decrease in cloud amounts. This downward trend has recently been used to suggest widespread increases in surface solar heating, decreases in planetary albedo, and deficiencies in global climate models. Here we show that trends observed in the ISCCP data are satellite viewing geometry artifacts and are not related to physical changes in the atmosphere. Our results suggest that in its current form, the ISCCP data may not be appropriate for certain long-term global studies, especially those focused on trends.

Sorry.

Craig Thomas

[JC paraphrase:] – the oscillation has caused changes in cloud cover which is causing cooling

[...]

[Craig T:] – what changes in cloud cover? Is this published anywhere?

As far as I can see, the cloud cover argument seems to hinge on the ISCCP data:

ISCCP global low cloud 1983 - 2010

So how reliable are the ISCCP data?

Evan et al. (2007)

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) multi-decadal record of cloudiness exhibits a well-known global decrease in cloud amounts. This downward trend has recently been used to suggest widespread increases in surface solar heating, decreases in planetary albedo, and deficiencies in global climate models. Here we show that trends observed in the ISCCP data are satellite viewing geometry artifacts and are not related to physical changes in the atmosphere. Our results suggest that in its current form, the ISCCP data may not be appropriate for certain long-term global studies, especially those focused on trends.

So the only published work on this view (apart from being useless for the purposes of this argument) actually contradicts it, is that it?

Why did the ABC allow unfounded claims from Curry to go to air?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 16 Oct 2014 #permalink

#71...it seems 'teaching the controversy' is a media mode that dies hard.

They even felt it would be useful to put grabs from Monckton and Maurice Newman. FFS

In the washup, and after the puzzling voice-over "all things considered there's been global warming pause" [clearly all things in the piece considered there has not] Kevin Trenberth and Matthew England get the last word, and consistently deliver the detail throughout, so the message that the system is gaining energy is unambiguous, IMHO... despite the cack-handed framing.

However, I just noticed a commenter on a newspaper thread refer to this Catalyst program and claim it made conclusions that were not to be found in the transcript...!

Craig Thomas

So the only published work on this view (apart from being useless for the purposes of this argument) actually contradicts it, is that it?

There are other data sets and other analyses, but the word on the street is 'no trend in cloud cover'.

See, eg. Marchand et al. (2013):

In this article, temporal changes in the Multiangle Imaging Spectro Radiometer (MISR) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) joint histograms of cloud-top height (CTH) and optical depth (OD) over the period 2001 to 2011 are examined. The analysis shows no significant trend in total cloud cover averaged over all oceans between 60°N and 60°S from 2001 to 2011. There are, however, significant trends in the amount of some CTH-OD histogram components or cloud types. In particular, there was an increase in the amount of cloud with intermediate optical thickness (23 > OD > 3.6) and a decrease in the amount of the most optically thick cloud (OD > 23) over this period. The total cloud amount shows no trend because the increase in the amount of intermediate optically thick clouds is nearly balanced by the decrease in the amount of the most optically thick clouds. This balance is not due to a simple shift toward optically thinner clouds in all regions but has a complex spatial pattern both regionally and vertically. An examination of the geographic distribution of the change shows that the decrease in the amount of the most optically thick cloud occurred primarily in the extratropics. International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) observations are briefly compared with those from MODIS and MISR. The comparison shows that ISCCP-retrieved total-cloud fraction is reasonably robust, but changes in the ISCCP component cloud fractions sometimes show large deviations from those of MISR and MODIS.

For an arguable even more persuasive analysis, see Loeb et al. (2012) Advances in Understanding Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Variability from Satellite Observations. Yes, cloud cover varies with the phase of ENSO, and yes it alters the radiation budget at TOA. However, since only Bob Tisdale actually thinks that ENSO is magically exempt from conservation of energy and drives long-term trends, Curry is on weak ground if L12 is what Curry had in mind:

This paper highlights how the emerging record of satellite observations from the Earth Observation System (EOS) and A-Train constellation are advancing our ability to more completely document and understand the underlying processes associated with variations in the Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation budget. Large-scale TOA
radiation changes during the past decade are observed to be within 0.5 Wm-2 per decade based upon comparisons between Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments aboard Terra and Aqua and other instruments. Tropical variations in emitted outgoing longwave (LW) radiation are found to closely track changes in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During positive ENSO phase (El Nino), outgoing LW radiation increases, and decreases during the negative ENSO phase (La Nina). The coldest year during the last decade occurred in 2008, during which strong La Nina conditions persisted throughout most of the year. Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) observations
show that the lower temperatures extended throughout much of the troposphere for several months, resulting in a reduction in outgoing LW radiation and an increase in net incoming
radiation. At the global scale, outgoing LW flux anomalies are partially compensated for by decreases in midlatitude cloud fraction and cloud height, as observed by Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer, respectively. CERES data show that clouds have a net radiative warming influence during La
Nina conditions and a net cooling influence during El Nino, but the magnitude of the anomalies varies greatly from one ENSO event to another. Regional cloud-radiation variations among several Terra and A-Train instruments show consistent patterns and exhibit marked fluctuations at monthly timescales in response to tropical atmosphere-ocean dynamical processes associated with ENSO and Madden–Julian Oscillation.

* * *

Why did the ABC allow unfounded claims from Curry to go to air?

Media muppetry, as per.

Bob Tisdale is clearly a nutter, let's leave him out of this.

If I understand the above correctly, tt seems reasonable to propose that the effects of ENSO could include natural variations to the radiation budget.

So, for example, El Nino periods could correspond with insolation maxima, with La Nina periods corresponding with low insolation - depending on the state of the radiative budget, La Nina could even correspond with global cooling, right?

If ENSO was the sole driver of these cooling/warming periods, then the last 16 years should have seen a steady decline in temperature. But it hasn't. There has been no cooling, and no El Nino.

Apart from that, for Curry to say that sensitivity is lower due to cloud cover changes caused by ENSO is mind-bogglingly dumb and self-contradictory - she is suggesting ENSO causes cooling, and she is using an unusually lengthy "cooling" period to calculate sensitivity to an external factor, namely CO2 concentration.

Curry just isn't the full quid.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 17 Oct 2014 #permalink

Wow, I peer into the mental ward and it's the same patients commenting about the same movie year after year...and there's BBD, still predicting that the movie will change. But it's the same movie, and the same patients with the same comments...

And the patents are still stuck in the month of September...

So having an interest in climate science is equivalent to being a patient in a mental ward in your view, eh Betty? Whereas being a right-wing denier is the epitome of sanity...

It's always projection...

And over near where Birch Bark resides we have the answer as to who is at fault for the threat of Ebola in the US, yes it is Obama, if you are a Fox believer that is. Wait for the numbskull comment from the one in the red dress near the end of that segment.

And the US Fish and Wildlife service are being accused, with reverberations around an echo chamber, of claiming that the Ebola outbreak is the Consequence of Deforestation and Climate Change’. This news outlet links to a report which does not exactly say that but does have this:

Global climate change, emerging infectious diseases, zoonosis, are all stressors in the environment that make it even more challenging to conserve biodiversity, including wild animals and their habitats...

Of course, without checking, those who get their information from the disinformers are freaking about how everything is being blamed on climate change, you know that hoax.

One of my protagonists elsewhere has even raised it on his blog in this light not having the education to realise that hey, there may just be some truth in the reality of ecosystem disruption hastening the spread of infectious disease.

Another intriguing development, also aired in the echo chamber, is that researchers have posited that the Black Death was an Ebola like pathogen and not a different form of disease. Given that Ebola is a virus and The Black Death' and 'The Great Plague of London' were caused by a bacterium they must be quite different.

My take, just a sign of things to come just as bark beetles move northward, and carrying who know what pathogens themselves, endangering more forest to fire. Note that the bark beetle grubs are blissfully unaware of the danger to their own survival they are creating, remind you of anyone.

"Wow, I peer into the mental ward"...

Actually its the other way around, John Birch. You and your coterie are in the asylum looking out. Rednoise the other day actually intimated that mainstream science has moved on from AGW. The truth, again, is absolutely the reverse. This is what happens with Dunning-Krugerites who think they are veritable experts in fields in which they have no formal qualifications, and who glean their world views from denier blogs. The situation is actually much more dire than in the latest IPCC report.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Oct 2014 #permalink

"Note that the bark beetle grubs are blissfully unaware of the danger to their own survival they are creating"

Rednose is a grub.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 18 Oct 2014 #permalink

The accelerating global warming seem to have made the number of deaths in natural disasters the lowest in ten years.

That's a credit to the people involved in disaster response. It's not a proxy that tells us anything much about extreme weather events. For that, you would need a much longer sample than a decade and you would have to adjust for population density increase in eg. coastal areas.

Would you say that the last decade has been characterised by a scarcity of severe weather events which caused massive damage and disruption?

It's actually not true that casualties are the lowest in the last ten years. Olaus needs a few more lessons in German.

For those interested in the actual numbers see Table 2 here:
http://www.ifrc.org/en/publications-and-reports/world-disasters-report/…
which shows casualties are significantly higher than 2007, 2009 and 2012.

And all that despite having fewer natural disasters...(*that* is what is lowest in the last ten years). I guess we should be lucky we had so few major earthquakes in 2013 - usually that is the big killer, along with hurricanes that hit very specific regions. Japan can handle a typhoon much better than the Philippines, for example.

Marco

I'm sorry - I should have checked his claim. Lazy. Thanks for the figures.

I should have checked his claim.

Come on BBD, you should know by now - if you don't have time to check his claim, the safest bet is always on it being dodgy one way or another.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 18 Oct 2014 #permalink

Marco, what's my German gotta do with anything? I was just handing out some good news, is all. The trend is rather good regardless, don't you think? :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 19 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus, if your German was any good, you would not have told a lie.

I also am not a big fan of drawing trendlines through such noisy data, where a single large earthquake or a typhoon that just hits 'right' can be the difference between 20,000 and 200,000 deaths in one year.

In the meantime, in 2013 22 million people were displaced due to natural disasters.

Marco, the German article told what I said. Not a lie then. Like always numbers can be discussed.

And welcome to the dark side where portents doesn't as climate. :-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 19 Oct 2014 #permalink

Olaus, you said
"the number of deaths in natural disasters the lowest in ten years"

The article says *no such thing*. The title says "number of natural catastrophies lowest in ten years", and the article says the number of deaths is "below the average of the last ten years", but *nowhere* does it state "number of casualties lowest in the last ten years".

We can discuss numbers all we want, but that will not change the fact that *you lied*, and continue to *lie* about what the article says.

You better come quickly with the excuse that your German indeed sucks, or we know you *lied* deliberately.

Olaus didn't lie.

As he has painstakingly demonstrated here over the years, Olaus is intellectually incompetent.

He does not understand what he reads, and he is incapable of accurately communicating anything.

Just on a side note - does the low number of earthquakes recently prove that climate sensitivity is lower than the IPCC has reported?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 19 Oct 2014 #permalink

And welcome to the dark side where portents doesn’t as climate.

Does not compute! Does not compute! Exterminate! Exterminate!

It isn't only German you have trouble with.

"You better come quickly with the excuse that your German indeed sucks, or we know you *lied* deliberately"

Olaus lying deliberately? Say it ain't so, Joe! But of course deniers and anti-environmentlaists are serial liars. Given their tiny numbers, they'd be ignored were it not for the fact that they can lie and fool the general public in doing so. This is a problem when debating them: they continually lie, whereas their opponents, usually qualified scientists, are cautious and meticulous with the truth. Moreover, deniers lie with arrogance and confidence: they exhibit every sign of being absolutely and incontrovertibly correct in ever detail. The general public is more likely to believe a confident denier than a cautious opponent.

Nore also how Olaus hasn't answered a simple question about mainstream climate scientists. This is because he either doesn't know any, or because in giving names of those he says he believes he will impugn himself. This is another trick of deniers: they refuse to answer direct questions. They spin, weave, dodge and avoid.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 Oct 2014 #permalink

Stephen Schneider and now Rick Piltz of Climate Science Watch Has Died.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

In case some have avoided linking through Rabett to Climate Science Watch here it is again:

On eve of climate march, Wall Street Journal publishes call to wait and do nothing.

Note the pure projection by Hockey Schtick in comments there:

This site is a fraud & pure propaganda...

when that entity is pushing this headline

New paper debunks "acidification" scare, finds warming increases pH

above an article making an apple out of an orange of this:

' Water pH and temperature in Lake Biwa from MBT'/CBT indices during the last 280 000 years'
T. Ajioka, M. Yamamoto, K. Takemura, A. Hayashida, and H. Kitagawa

It don't mean that the oceans are not changing pH because of increasing CO2 for one thing.

Now what was that about fraud and propaganda?

So is this alleged statement made by Professor Aston of Monash University correctly reported in The Australian?
:-)

“While opinions on causes differ, existence of the pause is settled,” “Only activists (and Deltoids) dare claim the pause in global temperature does not exist.”

Craig T is a maggot

Rednoise playing the jerk again.

Well you have munged the probably munged version of what Professor Asten is supposed to have said. After all Lloyd has a track record of misquoting scientists.

Here is a link to the article in question, you may find it pay-walled, certainly Firefox is behaving a little odd since loading it, suspect key-logger - take care:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/year-warming-p…

At present I know little of Professor Asten's record but if he did use Judith Curry to support a claim of low sensitivity then he could be as suspect as Curry:

A recent peer-reviewed paper by US-based climate scientist Judith Curry estimated the Earth’s climate had a much lower climate sensitivity to CO2 than predicted by the IPCC reports. As a result, Dr Curry said there were serious questions about whether the climate model projections of 21st-century temperatures were fit for making public policy decisions.

But of course it could be Lloyd being dishonest.

However this still leaves the big hole left in this article by ignoring the warming of the oceans, melting in the cryosphere etc.

See:

I believe you have been shown this before Rednoise:

The recent pause in warming - UK Met' Office.

Now a couple of clips that even a numpty like Rednoise would fail to understand, unless of course I have given him too much credit for even a low level of intellect and intellectual honesty:

http://climatecrocks.com/2014/10/17/seeing-co2-the-invisible-made-visib…

Over to

you in your bark Rednoise..

Sorry about that link to the Australian, it hits the paywall - odd (fkuc them). I could post the text if any interest.

A recent peer-reviewed paper by US-based climate scientist Judith Curry estimated the Earth’s climate had a much lower climate sensitivity to CO2 than predicted by the IPCC reports.

Unless my recollection is mistaken, it doesn't suggest this at all.

Then again, unskeptical people like Rednose will be easily misled by such a claim which is probably the intent of the article. And they won't even be upset when it is pointed out that they've been misled. Even more astonishingly they will defend those who misled them for doing it to them.

An intellectual form of Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps? Or are they in on the scam eagerly trying to mislead others?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Oct 2014 #permalink